


Eclipse

by Kelinswriter



Series: The Only Sun I Need is You [5]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, minor supercorp - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2019-05-02 10:03:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 56,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14542317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kelinswriter/pseuds/Kelinswriter
Summary: Alex has been taken by Cadmus. Maggie and the Superfriends must fight to find her - no matter what the cost.Set roughly around 3x04, though certain specifics have changed. (Please see previous works in this series for details.)If you're looking for happy, fluffy comfort fic, this is not your story. If you're looking for the kind of grand adventure we never got, this is where you want to be. Comments are welcome and appreciated.Please see end notes for warnings regarding violence/content. If you are sensitive to such things, please be certain to review before reading.Many thanks toRoadiefor her brilliant suggestions, betaing, and all-around wonderfulness. This one scared me, friend; thanks for pushing me to make it better.





	1. Chapter 1

“Kneel.”

Alex heard the word rise up at her from out of the darkness, the cold, imperious voice making it not so much a demand as an invocation. She must kneel now because that’s who she is — the one who kneels. The one who submits, because submission is survival.

And yet she falters, her body trembling, and not just from the cold. It’s always too cold in here, or perhaps it’s just that she is naked, and has been for she doesn’t know how long — two weeks, maybe three. There are ways to gauge the passage of time without a watch or calendar, but she has been stripped of even these thanks to the perpetual night they keep her in — the darkness of the blindfold, the utter blackness of her cage. She hasn’t seen light, other than as a paralyzing blur, in so long that she’s starting to forget what color looks like. The shape, the texture. The warmth of the sun. 

“Don’t make me repeat myself, Alexandra,” says the voice, its sharpness edged with honey. She is learning from this voice; what pleases it, what rouses it to anger. Learning what it will and won’t tolerate, what small victories it will allow her to have. Very few, she has come to understand. The slightest infraction, the smallest morsel of resistance, is grounds for brutal punishment — the lash, the cane, the sharp, searing intensity of electricity. Pain that makes her scream and shake, that clenches muscles and strains bones. Even her deep, intimate knowledge of the evil lurking in the souls of men has never let her imagine this level of cruelty.

But then again, it wasn’t a man doing these things to her.

“I won’t ask again,” Lillian Luthor says. Her hand burrows into Alex’s hair, pulling her head back until she gasps. “Kneel, or I’ll have you writhing before you take another breath.”

Alex knows this is no idle threat; knows the risks of non-compliance, not just in the moment, but for her long-term survival. Resist and she risks permanent damage. Resist and she could die.

She makes the smart play; does what she has to do. She kneels. 

Her knees hurt, but then everything hurts — her back, wrists, shoulders, neck. She would kill for a sip of water, would do virtually anything for the taste of Scotch against her tongue. Yet there is no escape from this agony, from the endless depths of Lillian’s control. She has spent more hours than she can count on her knees, hands cuffed behind her or, more often, chained high above her head. It seems to amuse Lillian to leave her in this position until her body is stretched past the point of endurance; until her teeth gnaw at the gag and she chokes on her groans. It feels, far too often, as if she cannot bear one more second without losing her mind. 

And yet she finds a way to get through. Another minute. And yet another. 

Thick, calloused fingers grasp at the cuffs holding her hands behind her back. She tenses, anticipating the moment when the binding loosens, when that split second of freedom between her wrist being bound and the hand dragging it upward into the shackle occurs. Before she can act, she feels the muzzle of a gun press into her forehead. 

“Be still, Alexandra,” Lillian says, and Alex eases her shoulders, unclenching her fists. She knows that the gun is mostly for show — she is too valuable a prize to kill so carelessly — and yet Lillian has been known to be reckless on occasion, if only to make a point. So she takes a breath, willing her racing heart to slow, and lets her arms be lifted upward until her wrists are secured above her head. It’s a stretch; her knees barely touch the floor, while her chest and shoulder muscles pull taut with the strain. Another week and she’ll have the kind of abs that would put even her fiancée to shame. 

She shudders, her stomach twisting at the thought of this being her life for another hour, much less another week. Shudders; and then tries to be still, while the muzzle digs deeper into her forehead. 

The gun is withdrawn after her ankles are manacled and bolted to the floor, leaving behind the sweat and stench of her terror, her body reacting to the threat of death even if she can’t — won’t — let herself think beyond her immediate options for survival and escape. She feels a hand on her face — long fingers, soft skin, the subtle scent of expensive perfume. She jerks her head away, making a low noise, and hears a “Tsk” in return.

“Now now, Alexandra,” Lillian says, and like that, the sweetness in her voice has turned to venom. “Do you need a refresher course in manners?”

Alex groans, tenses, resists the urge to plead, when she knows that pleading is useless. She bites down on the gag as she hears the cane whip through the air, knowing at any second it will make contact with her skin, and tries — tries so hard — not to be afraid.

But she is so afraid.

She feels the first blow fall, its sting slicing into a back already covered with welts. It hurts like fire arcing across her skin, and she swallows a scream, her teeth digging in to the tough leather wedged between them. Her mind struggles for purchase, lurches and spins until it finds something to latch on to, the only thing that feels real and solid amidst the madness. She traces the shapes of the names with each blow that lands, turning them into a mantra, a prayer. A way to get through the next minute.

Kara. J’onn. Mom.

 _Maggie._

They will come for her. She knows they will come for her. 

If only she can survive until they do.

 

\-----------

It had started like this:

Alex opened her eyes, checking the clock for what seemed like the thousandth time since she and Maggie had first settled into bed. It was 2:15, well past the point where trouble sleeping yielded to a full-blown case of insomnia. Which was stupid, because between the lab and the field, she’d worked more hours in the last week than she had since — well, maybe the Daxamite invasion, though it felt like more. Maggie had been slammed too — so much so, in fact, that they’d both collapsed into bed without much more than a chaste kiss and a mumbled promise to spend the next morning in bed together. It was Sunday, after all; their first free Sunday in weeks, and they were going to make the most of it. Only now, it looked like Alex was going to spend it strung out and exhausted because her mind wouldn’t let her rest.

She clasped the wrist slung gently over her hip and lifted it upward, sliding out from beneath Maggie’s loose embrace. Her right foot had barely touched the floor when she felt Maggie’s hand grip hers. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” Maggie asked, her voice scratchy and slurred with sleep.

Alex turned, seeing the glint of one eye cracked half-open, the city light filtering through their bedroom window giving it a translucent sheen. “I’m too restless, so I’m going to go watch some TV,” she whispered, pressing a kiss to hair so dark it almost looked blue. “Go back to sleep.” 

“Danvers, this apartment is one big room,” Maggie said, one hand sliding up to catch at Alex’s elbow. “You get up, I might as well too.” 

“I know. We really need to fix that.” Alex found Maggie’s cheek, tracing the angle of the bone all the way to her jawline. “I’ll be quiet, I promise.”

She turned away, easing toward the edge of the bed, but Maggie moved faster, sliding across the mattress to catch at her waist and pull her back down. Alex let out a little huff of breath, half-frustrated, half-amused, as she found herself drawn against Maggie’s body, her fiancée’s arms wrapped tight around her waist and chest. 

“Nope,” Maggie said, pressing a kiss just beneath Alex's ear. “Not until you tell me what’s bothering you.”

“If I knew what was bothering me, I’d fix it so I could sleep,” Alex replied, and felt as much as heard Maggie chuckle against her.

“Okay, then name one thing,” Maggie said, her left hand sliding beneath the loose-fitting folds of Alex’s tank top. She pressed her palm over Alex’s navel, her thumb rubbing a slow half-circle over Alex’s stomach. “One thing, no matter how silly it seems.”

“Well…” Alex eased back into the solid warmth of Maggie’s body, rooting around for a reason for the amorphous feeling of dread that had crept into her mind since the moment her head hit the pillow. She finally landed on, “The permafrost, for starters.”

“The permafrost?” Maggie made a noise that was part snort, part laugh, the quick explosion of her breath across Alex’s skin leaving goose bumps in its wake. “Babe, I think I’m going to need an explanation for why a bunch of frozen tundra in Siberia is keeping you from getting a good night’s sleep.”

“But it’s not just Siberia,” Alex said. “It’s Scandinavia, and Alaska, and the Yukon, and…”

“Nerd,” Maggie interrupted, as if she somehow knew that Alex was about to start in on the Southern hemisphere. “I don’t need a geography lesson. I need to know why.”

“Because it’s thawing, which means it’s going to release tons of trapped methane into the atmosphere,” Alex explained, feeling Maggie nod against her shoulder. “And that in turn will exponentially increase global warming, and then…”

“We’re all going to die. Got it.” Maggie tucked Alex tighter into her body, turning her head in to nuzzle her nose against Alex’s jawline. “If only you knew someone who had freeze breath and could, I don’t know, maybe keep the temperature down so that the methane stays where it belongs.” 

Alex chuckled at the image of Kara and Clark spending their days circling the North Pole, blasting cooling breaths over the permafrost so the reindeer could migrate in peace. “I’m not sure Kara would be down with that. Not enough pizza parlors in the Arctic.”

“At least it would keep her from showing up on our balcony at inconvenient times,” Maggie said, one thigh sliding up to wedge itself between Alex’s legs. Alex shivered at the contact, feeling her body loosen just slightly, though not enough to ease the foreboding swirling deep in her belly — the sense that something was coming, something that would blot out the sun and leave them shivering in barren darkness. Something that she had to stop, if only she knew how.

“Okay, that’s it,” Maggie said, leaving off the slow circles she’d been tracing around Alex’s navel with one fingertip. She sat up, patting Alex’s hip. “Time for some drastic measures.” 

“Maggie?” Alex asked, but Maggie was already clambering over her in her usual, endearingly direct route toward the bathroom. “What’re you thinking?”

“That someone needs a little TLC,” Maggie said, pausing long enough to brace her hands on either side of Alex’s body. She leaned in close, her mouth curving in a sly, dimpled smile as she brushed her lips over Alex’s and murmured, “Jammies off, on your tummy, and no arguments.”

“But…” Alex started to say, and felt Maggie’s forehead press, smooth and insistent, against her own. “I suppose I’d be stupid to fight you on this.” 

“You could say that.” Maggie slid off the bed, and an instant later came the hiss and flare of a match being lit. Maggie pressed it to the wick of the candle on their dresser, her skin glowing gold in the soft light, and turned, her lips pursed to blow out the flame while her eyes found Alex’s from across the intervening distance. “Give me just a minute.”

She disappeared into the bathroom, and Alex rubbed at her face, blowing out a breath. She knew she shouldn’t feel guilty; it was Maggie’s decision to opt for what she referred to as “the secret ingredient to any successful relationship,” but it still made Alex feel bad that she was always the one on the receiving end of it. _Maybe I need to take a class too,_ she thought as she slipped her clothes off and settled on her stomach, one cheek tucked into the side of her pillow. She laid there, eyes half closed, until Maggie emerged from the bathroom, her arms filled with towels and a bottle of massage oil. 

What followed was several minutes of rearranging things to Maggie’s liking: the blankets and top sheet pulled away, the towels layered beneath Alex’s body, the pillows tucked safely away “Or else they’ll smell like sandalwood for the next six months.” Finally Maggie leaned over Alex, softly stroking her hair back from her face while murmuring, “If you could make some vague attempt at relaxing, this would probably be a lot more fun.”

“I…relax,” Alex said, and Maggie just snorted, letting out a quick puff of breath against Alex’s temple. She sat back on her heels, warming the oil between her hands before placing them over Alex’s shoulder blades.

“Sure you do.” Maggie began to work the oil into Alex’s back, her hands moving in light, sweeping motions, the touch as delicate as a feather across Alex’s skin. “You’re just lucky I needed a bullshit one-credit course my senior year or you’d be paying sixty bucks an hour for this treatment.” 

“A bullshit one-credit course that you took because you thought it would help you get laid,” Alex said, and felt the slightest hint of a swat land on her hip. “Hey.” 

But Maggie just leaned down, her mouth so close to Alex’s ear that Alex felt a hot whisper of breath against her skin, and murmured, “It worked, didn’t it?” 

Alex turned her head to the side, finding Maggie’s eyes, and smiled. “It did.”

Maggie tilted her head, one corner of her mouth quirking in that soft, secretive smile that Alex had grown to think of as something just for her, and stroked a hand down Alex’s back. “Okay, Danvers. Time to settle.”

And with that the heels of Maggie’s hands began to press into Alex’s back: light at first, and then more firmly, working at the knots and kinks that had settled in Alex’s shoulders, her mid-back, near her hips. 

“Wow, you’re a mess,” Maggie said as she pressed what felt an awful lot like her elbow under the groove of Alex’s right shoulder blade. She worked it along the path of the bone until Alex tensed, fighting the urge to writhe under the pressure. “Babe, you need to get down to PT next week.”

“There’s no time with Hamilton on vacation,” Alex mumbled into the mattress. “I’m lead agent, lab supervisor, and chief medical officer all in one.” 

“And I thought the NCPD was cheap,” Maggie replied, straddling Alex’s hips so she could give her left shoulder blade the same treatment. She dug in, hesitating when Alex flinched at the pressure, and grumbled under her breath. “I’m serious, Sweetie. This isn’t good.” 

“I know.” Alex exhaled, felt Maggie hesitate, and exhaled again, resisting the urge to groan when Maggie eased into a particularly tense muscle. “It’ll pass. I just have to push through.” 

“I’m familiar,” Maggie said, her hands sliding down to gently, so gently, knead the twin spots where Alex’s waist and hips collided. “But it’s no way to live.”

Alex squirmed against the pressure, willing herself to surrender to it, to let Maggie’s hands draw the tension out of her, tension borne of long hours in front of a microscope or at a computer, of fall after fall after fall in the training room, of the gnawing sense that no matter what she did it would never be enough to protect her sister or Maggie or her friends or the planet from the deep, dark, ugly things that lurked just out of sight. She drew in a slow breath, let it out, and felt Maggie dig in a little deeper. “I shouldn’t put this on you.”

“Um…hi, fiancée here.” Maggie’s hands moved lower, kneading Alex’s ass before moving toward her inner thighs, as she softly said, “I vaguely recall someone telling me that I didn’t have to be guarded with her anymore. That the whole point was that we help each other heal.” 

“So you were paying attention,” Alex teased.

Maggie laughed at that, the sound of it cutting through the silence of the darkened apartment. She moved her hands lower, working down first one leg, then the other, before taking Alex’s right foot into her lap. Her fingers skimmed over the sensitive skin of Alex’s sole, thumbs pushing into the meat, as she asked, “Is this about the wedding?”

“No,” Alex said, pushing up on one elbow. Her shoulders ached with the strain of turning her neck, but she still held position, waiting for those dark, almost reluctant eyes to meet her own gaze. “No, Mags. I mean it. No matter how much craziness there is between now and then, I can’t wait to say that you’re my wife.”

“Okay,” Maggie said, and Alex felt Maggie start to close off, just a little, as if the demons she fought against every day were nipping at her heels. “Because the shower…my dad…”

“No,” Alex repeated, her voice low, and Maggie’s head snapped up, caught by the quiet force of the word. She fell still, a watchful wariness in her eyes, and Alex caught a glimpse of the abandoned little girl lurking beneath that gaze. “All that did was make me see, all over again, that I am marrying the strongest, most beautiful woman on the planet.” Alex paused, smiling gently, and added, “And in case you forgot, my sister is Supergirl.”

“She makes that hard to forget,” Maggie said, but Alex saw something shift in her fiancée's eyes, the doubt turning to hope, to certainty, with one flick of her gaze. She bobbed her chin toward the head of the bed, her smile almost shy, and said, “Lay down.”

Alex waited a beat longer, wanting to be sure that Maggie had the reassurance she needed, before turning again, settling her face against the mattress. She felt the soft terrycloth of the towel against her cheek, felt the rhythm of Maggie’s fingers pressing into her feet, and hummed as her muscles finally started to ease. “I think…I feel like something is coming.”

“Something with us?” Maggie asked, her fingers never faltering against Alex’s skin. “Or something in the ‘We live in a world where aliens invade and bad guys try to blow the planet up and you and I spend our lives trying to stop it’ vein?” 

“That one,” Alex said, and felt Maggie’s fingertips skim over the sole of her right foot as Maggie set it back onto the mattress. She slid her palms down the back of Alex’s left calf, each movement gentle yet precise as she cradled the foot in her hands, then drew it into her lap. “Or maybe it’s just that it’s been too quiet lately.”

“I’m sure I could find a case or five to keep you busy,” Maggie said, tugging at each of Alex’s toes as she slyly added, “I mean, in your spare time, considering you’re doing three jobs for the foreseeable future.”

“Ha.” Alex winced as Maggie’s thumb dug into a particularly sore spot in the middle of her foot, breathing through the pain until it transmuted into something more like pleasure. “You’re so good at that.”

“I just like making you feel good.” Maggie let go of Alex’s foot and crawled up the bed, her fingertips trailing across Alex’s naked skin, and Alex felt something coalesce low in her belly; a tension of sorts, but one entirely different from what had plagued her for most of the night. She felt Maggie’s hand slip between her legs, the touch feather-light, as a low, throaty murmur rasped across Alex’s skin. “So. Me or Junior?”

“You,” Alex breathed, turning her head, and saw Maggie nod in understanding of what she needed; the soft, gentle, tender touches that only Maggie’s mouth and hands could provide. She felt Maggie’s hands slide up her back one last time, and then her lips were pressed to Alex’s temple, the crown of her head nudging against the side of Alex’s head. “You need the bathroom?”

Alex shook her head and slumped into the mattress, half-drowsing in the pleasant glow left behind by Maggie’s hands on her skin as she heard Maggie slip into the next room, the water running for several seconds before it abruptly cut off. The door opened, and a moment later Alex felt Maggie’s weight shift on the bed, her body sliding over her, only this time it was skin against skin. She tucked herself into Alex’s side, one hand sliding up the inside of her thigh, and murmured, “Relax. Let me do the work.” 

Maggie’s lips caressed Alex’s shoulder, tracing the same path her elbow had taken a few minutes before. Her center rocked against Alex’s thigh, her fingers touching gently, so gently, and Alex couldn’t help but dig into the mattress and press into the touch. 

“Breathe for me, Baby,” Maggie whispered, and Alex did, her inhale followed by an exhale that turned into a gasp when Maggie’s fingers slid into her, what little force there was lost in the sea of pleasure, in the rightness of that touch. She tightened against it and heard a whispered, “Let me,” before that pressure became a slow, gentle thrust in time with the movements of Maggie’s breasts and hips against Alex’s back and thighs. And all the while the pleasure built, a pleasure that caused her belly to tighten, that made her sigh and moan, that made her fingers curl into the mattress as she rocked in time with it. 

“Maggie,” she whimpered, and felt soft kisses press across her shoulders and neck, her hair, the side of her face. Maggie’s tongue slid into her ear, her teeth nipping at Alex’s earlobe, and she arched, the sharp yet tender sensation nearly sending her over the edge.

“I’ve got you,” Maggie whispered, repeating the words over and over until Alex’s body went rigid, her fingers and toes digging into the mattress while colors exploded behind her eyes. She felt Maggie’s arm wrap around her waist and draw her upward, pushing her further and further with another finger, and yet another, until her body clenched and went still, the chaos in her mind shattering as she fell into something that felt very much like peace.

She would wish, later, that she hadn’t turned her head away, her face burrowing into the mattress to muffle her cries. When she remembered it now — when she clung to it like the lifeline it was — she wished more than anything that she had found Maggie in the darkness. That in that last, soul-sustaining surge of need and love, she had looked into Maggie’s eyes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> NSFW! EXTREMELY NSFW!!!!
> 
> Sorry this one took a while - it's big, and May was a busy month. Hoping to settle into a more regular posting schedule soon. 
> 
> Normally I put trigger warnings in end notes but I can't think of anything that qualifies in this chapter.
> 
> Comments are, as always, much appreciated.

Maggie unlocked the apartment door.

It hurt to do that — her hands resisted inserting the key, turning the lock, pushing the door open. She didn’t want to go in, not if Alex wasn’t there.

It had been three weeks of Alex not being there.

But she needed to go in, take a shower, charge her phone, try to sleep. Needed to deal with the mundane realities of life before she crashed, her body pushed past the point where sheer force of will was capable of keeping it going. “You need to take a break, Sweetie,” Eliza had said the last time she checked in, and J’onn had echoed the statement more forcefully less than an hour before.

“Get out of here, Detective Sawyer,” he ordered when she nearly nodded off in the middle of the PM status update. “Or I’ll call your captain and have him make it official.”

“That asshole doesn’t care now that I’m on loan to the DEO,” Maggie had replied, exhaustion giving her words a tarter tone than she’d intended. “In fact, he’d probably haul me in for a shift at the station just for spite.”

“He would have to go through me,” J’onn said, and then blocked Maggie when she tried to return to the command center. “I mean it, Maggie. You’re past seeing things clearly. Take a break.”

She’d glared at him; glared and growled and grumbled, but J’onn could pick her up bodily and toss her in an elevator without breaking a sweat even in his human guise. So she gave a grudging nod and said, “Call me if there’s anything.”

“If he doesn’t, I will,” Winn said from behind his terminal, his face deeply lined by the worry and stress of the last weeks. He was exhausted too — they all were, worn down to nothing by trying to maintain hope out of nothing but rumors and theories and the occasional computer model. Three weeks in, and it was getting harder to trust that Alex could still be extracted from the trap that Lillian Luthor had so cunningly set for her. Yet it was the only thing Maggie would let herself believe; the only thing she could believe. 

Because the alternative — well, the alternative was madness.

Walking inside the apartment, she locked the door, taking in the emptiness of the space that had officially been her home since the day the Daxamites had damaged her old building so badly that it had been condemned. She hadn’t been there for a few days, but she was fairly sure when she’d left there’d been a pile of untended mail on the kitchen counter. Someone had sorted it; the junk had been tossed into recycling, while the important bills were laid out with a note indicating when each one was due. The haphazard collection of takeout boxes in the fridge had disappeared as well, replaced by several individual plastic cartons of lasagna, some eggs, and a bag of fresh salad mix. It seemed Eliza had made good use of Alex’s spare key, and Maggie couldn’t find it in her to be anything but grateful. 

She warmed a slice of lasagna, picking at it with as much enthusiasm as she could muster while she sorted through the bills and paid those she could on her phone, with the rest on hold until her next paycheck arrived. She could cover all of their expenses on what she made in a month, but just barely. Between wedding plans and wills and powers of attorney, they’d gotten sidetracked, with joint checking still on the to-do list with four weeks to go. 

“We can’t be too organized, or it’ll be bad luck,” Alex had said when they’d postponed the trip to National City Bank yet again because work got in the way. Yet bad luck had found them anyway, in the shape of Cadmus.

Maggie dumped her picked-over lasagna down the garbage disposal, swallowing the last of her Scotch. She’d allowed herself one — enough to take the edge off so she could sleep, but not enough that she couldn’t be back at the DEO in no time flat. But when she emerged from the shower ten minutes later, her phone, now up to 40% charged, had no calls and no messages. 

The empty, endless wait continued.

She grabbed a t-shirt and shorts and pulled on both, noting as she did that the pile of dirty laundry in the corner had been converted into a basket full of clean, folded shirts, shorts, and underwear. She had a feeling if she checked the closet she would find her work clothes hung up; jeans folded at the crease, button-down shirts crisply ironed. In the morning, when she was capable of stringing together more than two words at a time, she would call Eliza and thank her for the help. 

But not now. Now, she simply crawled into bed, letting out a sigh as she slid between fresh sheets. It felt so good to hold still, if only for a minute. She nestled her head into the pillow, breathing in the clean scent of it…

…and froze, her heart lurching.

_Eliza had washed the sheets Eliza had changed the sheets the bed didn’t smell like Alex anymore oh God oh God oh God…_

She grasped at Alex’s pillow and pulled it in close, hoping beyond hope that the calculus in her head would be proven wrong, that the gesture, kind as it was, would turn out to have been a lie, because if that last, lingering trace of Alex was gone then Maggie was going to lose it in a way she had promised herself she wouldn’t, the ache and the longing of it shredding her and —

Her fingers tangled in a bit of cloth tucked beneath the pillow, her mind registering the softness of the material first, so different from the cool smoothness of the pillowcase. It was only after that, as she tugged it toward her, that she realized that it was a shirt; the same shirt that Alex had been wearing that last morning. A shirt that Eliza had left behind because she had known, from bitter experience, that Maggie would need something that still carried Alex’s scent.

Maggie drew it close and breathed it in, making a brief, futile attempt at keeping the tears from spilling out. But they came anyway; all the bitter pain of the last weeks, of knowing that Alex was being hurt — was being tortured, most likely, because after the Exodus ship Lillian had promised her revenge, and now that she had the chance Maggie was sure she would take it. Her sobs echoed through the room, born of her own failings, of leads going nowhere, of cup after cup of coffee like poison in her stomach and the fear, the evil fucking fear, deep in places that she tried hard not to look at too closely, that she might never see Alex again.

“Maggie?”

She turned, rolling toward the bedside table, the Glock smooth and steady in her hand before she even registered that Kara, dressed in her Supergirl garb, was standing in the middle of the kitchen, the patio door curtain still swaying from her sudden passing. Maggie pulled the shot just in time, raising the pistol toward the ceiling while her other hand dropped away. “Fuck, Kara.”

“Sorry.” Kara had the grace to look sheepish for a moment, but only that, before she was at the edge of the bed, her speed too fast for Maggie to track. “I was flying by when I heard you, and…” She sat down on the edge of the bed, the Girl of Steel subsumed, if only for a moment, by the sister bereft at the loss of her anchor. “Maggie, it’s okay.”

Maggie shook her head, wiping her hand over the back of her eyes. “I’m fine, Kara,” she said, her throat thick with the lie of it. She set the Glock back on the table and pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. “Anything?”

Kara shook her head. “I hovered over the city for about an hour, just listening for her, but —“ She tilted her head to the side, those blue eyes welling with tears that Maggie knew came from a love deep enough to rival her own. “I just can’t find her.”

“It’s Rick Malverne all over again,” Maggie said, the thought of him making her stomach churn as if she’d drunk a fifth of Scotch rather than a finger.

Kara nodded, her voice dropping to a whisper. “I’m just afraid we’ll never…”

“We will,” Maggie insisted, clutching Alex’s shirt tighter against her chest. She drew in a breath, her lungs aching with the sense that Alex was just out of reach; that no matter how hard she tried, Lillian would always be one step ahead. “We have to.”

They sat there for a time, lost in the horror of a world in which Alex might never come home. Kara broke the silence first, her voice the timid tones of a lost child as she asked, “Could I stay?”

“What about Eliza?” Maggie asked, not wanting her future mother-in-law to worry. She had arrived in National City the day after Alex went missing, holding vigil at Kara’s loft while she did her best to keep both their lives going and still manage her own job via email and Skype.

“I’ll text her.” Kara dropped her eyes to the floor, quietly saying, “I’m hoping she’s asleep by now. Most nights…”

“She doesn’t,” Maggie said with a nod, knowing how hard it was for Eliza to have her child missing, especially after all the years she’d lived as a widow when her husband’s death, it turned out, had been a lie. It was hard to fathom how she was upright after all this time, much less the rock they’d all come to count on in this crisis. 

“Mind if I borrow something?” Kara asked, and Maggie felt her grip on Alex’s shirt tighten, her mind springing to the irrational conclusion that Kara might try to snatch the garment out of her hands.

“Not this one,” she said, and then tilted her head toward the dresser. “You know where.” 

She blinked and Kara was gone, the faint whirr of her moving from dresser to bathroom and back again overlapping the quiet echo rising up from the city below. Then she was beside Maggie again, wearing Alex’s dark gray sweats and light gray fatigues, the clothes looking just a little too small on Kara’s longer, more powerful frame. She stood there for a moment, wringing her hands together, and said, “I’ll just be on the couch.” 

“No,” Maggie said, and Kara’s eyes widened. “That’s not…I mean…” She felt something shatter in her, the last fragments of a barrier that should, by all rights, have fallen long ago. “Just sleep here.”

“You’re sure?” Kara asked, and Maggie nodded, sliding toward Alex’s side of the bed. She tucked the shirt under her chin, clutching it tight against her so that the lingering hint of sweat and sweetness that was Alex could wrap itself around her senses. It was a ghost, an echo; but for the moment, it was all she had. 

Kara slid beneath the covers, one hand lifting to touch Maggie’s left shoulder before curling back in on itself. “I miss her,” she said, the love and the loss in her words so entangled that there was no way to separate the two. “Maggie, I miss her so much.”

“I miss her too,” Maggie said when the ache subsided; when she could breathe. 

She wrapped her arms around Alex’s pillow, hoping if she held on tight enough it would somehow transform into her fiancée, safe and whole in her arms. But it remained as it was, soft and smooth, its surface marred only by the last of Maggie’s tears. 

It turned out there were a lot of them, silent as they were; so many that they were still trickling down her face when, at last, she slept. 

 

\-------------

It had started like this:

“Good morning, Beautiful.” 

The words, a soft whisper against Maggie’s skin, were followed by a kiss to her cheekbone, just below her eye. Then came two to her nose, followed by one to her jaw, her chin, then back to her cheek again.

Without opening her eyes, Maggie lifted one hand, smoothing it over a bare shoulder and up a long length of neck until her fingers were threaded through the short hairs at the base of Alex’s skull. She cleared her throat, her voice scratchy with sleep, and asked, “Are you counting my freckles again?”

“It’s my duty as a scientist to catalog each one,” Alex said, nosing down to brush her lips against Maggie’s neck. “I doubt I’ll ever be done.”

“I’m glad I’ve given you a mission to keep you busy.” Maggie opened her eyes, squinting against the morning light coming in through the curtains. “What time is it?” 

“Early still.” The feather-light fringe of Alex’s eyelashes swept against Maggie’s temple as she leaned in for another kiss. “Though not too early for this.”

“Never too early for this,” Maggie agreed, and tilted her head up to capture Alex’s lips with her own. She shifted to the right and felt Alex slide over her, their bodies fitting together under the warmth of the blankets; still naked, and both smelling of sandalwood and sex. It was, Maggie thought, a very good way to wake up. 

She settled deeper into the mattress and felt Alex move with her, their bodies molding against each other until it was hard to tell where she ended and Alex began. She skimmed her fingertips down Alex’s spine, feeling Alex shiver in response, and smiled up at her. “You sleep okay?”

“Better, after you took such good care of me.” Alex dipped down to kiss the corner of Maggie’s mouth, murmuring, “I’d really like to return the favor.”

“I wouldn’t complain,” Maggie said, lifting one hand to brush a tangle of sleep-crumpled hair away from Alex’s face. “In fact, I’d like that a lot.”

“Yeah?” Alex’s lips quirked in a half-smile, her eyes drifting down to focus on Maggie’s mouth. “You sure about that?”

“Really sure.” Maggie traced her hand along the path of that long, lean jawline, her thumb sliding up to tug against the curve of Alex's lower lip. 

Alex smiled, a mischievous gleam in her eyes, and leaned down, her mouth almost, but not quite touching Maggie's. Maggie lifted upward toward the kiss, her hips shifting in anticipation, but to her surprise, Alex just pulled away. 

“Tease,” Maggie whispered, and felt Alex’s weight shift as she braced on one elbow, tangling her left hand in Maggie’s right and pressing it to the mattress above Maggie’s head. Maggie softened in response, her bones feeling almost liquid as they absorbed the change in pressure. 

“I take this very seriously, actually,” Alex murmured, sliding her index finger over Maggie’s lower lip, then downward into her mouth. Maggie caught at it, sucking with gentle pressure, and felt Alex’s lips against hers, her teeth nipping insistently until Maggie opened her mouth and let Alex’s tongue in too. 

It surged through her then, that mix of lust and love and heat that was Alex’s skin against hers, Alex’s mouth and hands and body working in concert to overload her senses in ways she had never imagined before. She’d had relationships that had lasted both years and the length of time it took to get off against the back wall of a noisy club, yet Alex — strong, sexy, barely out a year Alex — was somehow the only person, in this universe or any other, who could make her feel as if time itself had stopped with a single stroke of her hand.

Maggie surrendered to it, bit by bit, the slow, purposeful way in which Alex began to touch and kiss her a clue that Alex had awakened in one of those moods where she was determined to make Maggie feel loved. She had learned early on that when this happened, the best thing to do was simply to accept it, to let her own ideas about what she’d like to do to the strong yet startlingly delicate body on top of her fade. So she clenched one hand in the sheets, cradling the other around the back of Alex’s skull, and let the feelings build into a singular need, an aching pleasure that coiled, tighter and tighter until, in a sudden clutching rush, it subsided into a blank, blissful peace.

She came back to herself to find Alex’s head tucked under her chin, Alex’s hand tracing slow circles on her belly. She let out a breath, tilting her head down to place a kiss on Alex’s forehead. “I love you.”

Alex smiled against her shoulder, pressing a kiss to it before sliding up to plant a second, lazier one against Maggie’s mouth. She pulled back, and Maggie saw hesitation in that wide, dark gaze, in the way she bit her lip and looked down, as if unsure of herself. 

“I was thinking…” Alex said, and then trailed off.

Maggie let out a soft laugh. “Uh-oh.”

Alex lifted bashful eyes, and Maggie pressed a hand to her cheek, marveling at the feel of that smooth skin. “Tell me?” she pleaded, her thumb brushing gently over Alex’s lips.

“Well,” Alex said, drawing in a nervous breath. “If you were up for it, I was thinking that I’d like to…” She hesitated, blushing, and then tilted her head up, whispering, with a surprising level of detail, just what she’d been envisioning for round two against the shell of Maggie’s ear.

And Maggie felt her body clench on nothing at the thought. 

She hesitated at first; she was rarely on the receiving end of what Alex was suggesting, and in the past, with other partners, it had left her feeling too vulnerable to ever really relax into the experience. But this was Alex; Alex who loved her, who wanted her like no one ever had, for whom finally she was enough. And so she nodded, feeling Alex slip away from her with a last kiss before returning moments later, the clank and jingle of the harness causing Maggie’s stomach to tighten in anticipation. 

She felt Alex slide back onto the bed and looked up, seeing Alex hovering over her, a look that was equal parts sheepish and amused crossing her face. “This is the most ridiculous thing ever,” she murmured, and Maggie reached down, wrapping her hand around the dildo that they had nicknamed Junior — mostly because Alex wouldn’t stop giggling every time Maggie said the word ‘dildo’ — and pushed upward until Alex let out a gasp. 

“Yeah, but there’s that,” Maggie murmured, her voice low in her throat. 

Alex’s lips curved in what could only be described as a wolfish smile. “But first,” she said, and kissed Maggie with a fervor that left her feeling weak.

Alex took a different path this time, lingering on Maggie’s neck, her breasts, the exquisitely sensitive skin above her ribs, until she settled, once again, between Maggie’s thighs. Her fingers were gentle, each touch more delicate than the last, as she drew Maggie’s folds apart with her thumbs, massaging the outer edges of Maggie’s vaginal entrance while her tongue dipped inside. It felt so good — so right — that it took Maggie a few minutes to realize that Alex was making sure she was ready, that her body would be open and accepting, just as Maggie had done for her so many times before. It made Maggie love her even more, and that love became a pressure, one that built behind her eyes and inside her chest and between her legs until, with a gasp, she pushed up on one elbow, her other hand reaching down to caress Alex’s cheek as she rasped, “Now.” 

“Yeah?” Alex asked, raising her head, and Maggie just nodded, her limbs shaking with the force of the need that had arisen in her. Alex sat back on her heels, opening her arms as she drew Maggie up to straddle her lap, and then they spent what felt like an endless two minutes fumbling with the lube and adjusting their positions until Alex slowly — so slowly — eased Junior inside. It was a lot; for all their joking about the toy’s nickname, it was anything but, and by the time Alex was finished Maggie was panting, her forehead pressed into the crook between Alex’s neck and shoulder while Alex’s hands caressed her back and threaded through her hair.

“You okay?” Alex asked, her voice gentle.

Maggie bit the inside of her lip and squeezed her eyes shut, taking a slow, deep breath, then another, while her muscles rippled and fluttered around the toy. She felt Alex’s hand on her cheek and lifted her head, the mix of love and concern and pure, unadulterated lust in Alex’s eyes almost enough to make her come apart on the spot. Instead, she shifted position — not much, but enough for her body to tense unexpectedly — and said, “Just go slow.” 

Alex nodded and leaned in for a kiss, and Maggie opened herself to it, letting herself be surrounded and overwhelmed at every possible point by Alex: Her lips, fingers, tongue, skin. She felt Alex’s hand brace against her back and began to rock against her, each slow, smooth movement sweet like honey through her veins. And all the while, Alex held steady, her arms the anchor Maggie needed to ground her while the intensity built, and built, and built. 

“You never told me how good this side could feel,” Alex said, the words gasped out on the cusp of an indrawn breath. Her jaw tightened, a signal that she was close, and Maggie smoothed a thumb over her cheek, her other hand sliding up to scratch at the nape of Alex’s neck. 

“Wanted to keep it to myself, I guess.” Maggie leaned in for a kiss as she pressed down harder, focusing on Alex’s pleasure until Alex made a noise, low in her throat, and dragged Maggie’s lower lip between her teeth. She smoothed her hand down Maggie’s back, tracing over each vertebrae until it came to rest low on her spine. One finger dipped lower, and Maggie felt a sharp gasp burst from deep within her lungs. 

Alex smiled at that; that sly, troublemaking smile that meant she was insufferably pleased with herself, and Maggie made a note to ask how long she’d been contemplating _that_ move. At the moment she was too overwhelmed to do more than nod when Alex murmured, “I guess that’s okay.” She let her real response come from her stuttering hips, the rapidity of her breathing, the way her arms tightened around Alex’s shoulders. She felt a tear slip down her cheek and froze, startled, because she had never been the sort of person who cried during sex — except now, with Alex, when she apparently was.

“I’m here,” Alex said, one thumb sliding up to brush the tear away. They weren’t just words; in her eyes, Maggie saw that Alex understood, on some deep, instinctive level how hard it was for Maggie to be this vulnerable, to inch her way toward true intimacy. “I’m not going anywhere.”

And Maggie gasped in a breath and let another layer of armor fall, the tears spilling down her cheeks a product not of fear or shame, but joy and love. She anchored one arm around Alex’s neck and brought their lips together, the slow, openmouthed kiss dissolving into a gasp as her legs begin to shake. Her other hand moved on instinct, sliding down between them while Alex murmured, “My God, I love you,” and that, along with a few quick touches, was enough.

She wondered later if she’d had two orgasms on top of each other, or simply one long one that came over in her stages, the second much stronger than the first. Either way it left her shredded, her abdominal muscles contracting so hard that they would ache for days. She buried her face in Alex’s shoulder as a strange, helpless keening echoed around the room, one that she realized, as if from far away, was coming from her. But for once she didn’t feel embarrassed by it; she was too lost in the need it expressed, in the solace that only Alex’s touch could provide. And it was there, in Alex’s hands rubbing her back and Alex’s kisses against her hair and Alex’s words, whispered as if straight to her soul: “There it is, there it is. I’ve got you, I do. Beautiful, you’re so beautiful.” 

It took a while for her to move. The aftershocks came hard with every attempt, the intensity of them piling one on top of the other until she was all but paralyzed in the warmth of Alex’s arms. Eventually her hips and knees began to cramp, her need to change position supplanting her desire to hold on to what Alex had given her for as long as possible. She pressed a hand to Alex’s shoulder and felt Alex’s arms loosen around her, but slowly, as if reluctant to let her go.

“Let me,” Alex said, and rolled them both until Maggie was lying on her side. They lay still for a time, while Alex kissed Maggie’s face and hair and rubbed her back and neck while whispering soft words until, by degrees, she pulled away. Maggie shuddered at the loss, but Alex just kissed her temple and whispered, “Stay right here,” before disappearing into the bathroom. She wasn’t gone for long and yet it felt, somehow, like an eternity before she was sliding back onto the mattress, one thigh lifting to press against Maggie’s center as she pulled the covers over them both. 

Maggie didn’t know how long they lay like that, wrapped in the warmth and strength of each other, but at some point she must have drifted off to sleep again. When she woke, it was to the scent of coffee, the sound of the shower, and the sun much higher in the sky. She heard her stomach rumble and stretched contentedly, sorting through the pleasant ache from the morning’s exertions until the bathroom door opened and Alex ducked her head around the corner.

“Hey, Sleepyhead,” she said, brushing a damp tangle of hair out of her eyes. She was wearing jeans and a t-shirt and had that extra, bouncy energy that she always seemed to exude after morning sex. “You finally awake?”

“If you don’t want me to sleep in, maybe don’t spend the morning fucking me blind,” Maggie teased, and Alex responded with a playful, pretend shock that made Maggie laugh out loud.

“I can’t help myself,” Alex said, pouring a cup of coffee and carrying it over to the bed. She sat down beside Maggie, arranging the pillows so Maggie could recline against them before handing her the mug. Before she could drink, Alex leaned in for a soft kiss, saying, “That was amazing, by the way. You were amazing.” 

“Did you…” Maggie trailed off, guilt spreading through her at the sudden realization that she might have left Alex hanging. “I mean, I didn’t see…”

“When you did,” Alex said, biting her lip while a blush tinged her cheeks. “It was kind of annoying, actually. All I really wanted to do was watch you.” 

Maggie felt her body go warm all over at the thought, and she dropped her gaze, an unexpected shyness flooding through her at the notion that Alex could take the same kind of pleasure from making her come that she did when Alex came apart in her arms. She focused on the coffee in her hands, blowing a cooling breath onto it while she gathered herself, before asking, “So do you want to go out for breakfast or stay in and be lazy?”

Alex put a hand on Maggie’s thigh over the sheets, waiting for Maggie to look at her, and smiled, as if to say that she too was still entangled in the intensity of what they had just shared. “I’d love to be lazy, but our refrigerator is almost empty. Plus, Kara called while you were unconscious and asked if we wanted to have brunch with her and Lena.” 

“She’s back to that?” Maggie asked, taking her first sip of the rich, dark Italian roast that she’d coaxed Alex into making their house blend. It had a settling effect, and she straightened, a bit more of her usual sharpness coming back into her voice. “I guess that’s good. Maybe it means she’s finally getting past Asshat?”

Alex sucked in a breath, her eyes widening. “Babe, you’ve got to stop calling him that.”

“Oh, like you didn’t feel the same,” Maggie said, not even trying to hide her disdain.

“Well of course I did, but one of these days you’re going to slip and say that out loud, and then Kara’s going to incinerate you with her eyeballs.” Alex grinned, a sly note in her voice, and added, “And I really don’t want to be a widow this young.” 

“As opposed to later in our marriage?” Maggie teased.

Alex let out a snicker and tugged the mug out of Maggie’s hand, appropriating a mouthful. She wrinkled her nose, saying, “You know the way you drink your coffee is gross, right?”

“Then stop stealing it,” Maggie replied, pinching Alex’s side until she relented and handed the coffee over. Maggie cradled the mug between her hands and took another sip, adding, “You’re right. I’ll be careful. And I think, after how thoroughly relaxed you just made me, that I can manage to keep my mouth shut through brunch with your sister and her girlfriend.”

“They’re just friends,” Alex insisted, though she sounded more like she was trying to convince herself than Maggie.

“Like we were?” Maggie smirked.

Alex's cheeks reddened at that. It didn't take her long to recover, however, for she leaned in closer, kissing Maggie with a heat that was anything but friendly, and murmured, “Go shower. I’ll tell Kara we’ll be there in an hour.” 

"I'm going." Maggie clambered out of bed, strolling toward the bathroom wearing nothing but her own skin. She paused halfway through the living room, unable to resist a little teasing along the way. "See something you like, Danvers?"

"Maybe," Alex said, and though she was trying to play it cool, her white knuckle grip on the sheet she'd been straightening gave her away. Her eyes flicked up and down Maggie's body, and she licked her lips, once, then twice, before reaching for the water bottle on the nightstand. “Keep looking like that and I’ll never stop staring.” 

“That’s the idea,” Maggie replied, and heard the sound of Alex’s laughter follow her as she closed the bathroom door. 

Five minutes later it opened again, a blast of cold air sneaking in to the warmth of the steam-filled room. Alex ducked her head inside, her voice muffled by the shower noise. “Bad news, Babe.”

“You mean, besides the shampoo in my eyes?” Maggie asked from beneath the spray, the sting in her eyes refusing to abate no matter how hard she tried to rinse it away. 

“Wow, you’re talented,” Alex said with a snort. She opened the bathroom cabinet, and a moment later, Maggie felt a washcloth pressing against her eyes. 

“Thanks.” Maggie reached up to catch at Alex’s wrist, squeezing gently before she took charge of the washcloth for herself. “I’m guessing your bad news isn’t about me using too much shampoo.”

“Not exactly.” Alex helped her rinse out the washcloth and guided it to her eyes again, saying, “J’onn needs me and Kara in for a bit. We got a line on some Cadmus tech and he needs us to go take a look.”

“Want some backup?” Maggie asked, though how, exactly, she was going to be of use to Alex when she couldn’t even manage to take a shower without blinding herself, she wasn’t sure. 

“Nah, we got it.” Alex pushed the shower door further open and ducked inside, tugging Maggie far enough out of the spray that she could give her a quick kiss. “I should be back in time for dinner.”

“Be careful,” Maggie said, pulling the washcloth away from her eyes. She blinked, still too blinded to really focus on Alex, and added, “I might as well go catch up on paperwork, so call me when you’re done.”

“Will do.” Alex leaned in for a second, slightly more lingering kiss, one hand sliding up to squeeze Maggie’s arm. “I love you, you drowned rat.”

“Smart ass,” Maggie replied. She heard a cackle, followed by the door thudding shut, and shouted a quick, “Love you too!” over the sound of the spray. But there was no response; only silence, and a few minutes later, the sound of the apartment door closing behind Alex for what, she would later realize, might very well have been the last time. 

When she thought about it later — as the hours became days, and then weeks — it wasn’t the sting of the soap or the heat of the water or even the sweet, sexy kiss Alex had given her that she remembered. It was that she’d let Alex go without really looking her in the eye.

She would give anything for one more chance to look into Alex’s eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No warnings, only angst. And did I mention NSFW?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our first Kara chapter (yes, there will be Kara chapters. I need her to carry some of the narrative.)
> 
> Please see end notes for warnings.
> 
> Author's note: In this version of season 3, Cat is still at Catco. Because a. What the hell is someone who went to MIT doing running a media company? and b. Life is just more fun when Cat Grant is in the picture.

“Keeeeeeeiraaaaaaa!”

Cat’s voice floated above the newsroom, drawing Kara’s attention away from the chat window on her computer. She had been updating Clark with the latest news on Alex’s disappearance — which was the same as the day before, and the day before that. He’d offered to fly in from Metropolis to help with the search, but there was no reason for him to do so when there were no leads to follow.

“Ms. Grant’s calling me, gotta go,” she typed, then closed the chat window and hurried across the newsroom — or at least, pretended to hurry, while actually moving at what was, for her, a maddeningly deliberate pace — and found her mentor sitting at her desk, her head bowed over a stack of correspondence. “Yes, Ms. Grant?”

“Keira.” Cat signed the top sheet on the pile, slid it aside, and sat back, yanking her black-rimmed designer glasses away from her eyes. She tossed them down on her blotter, which was already littered with five other pairs of varying design, and folded her hands in front of her, her mouth thinning to a tight line. “It’s come to my attention that you weren’t at story conference this morning. It’s come to my attention because, you see, I looked over at the spot where you should be standing and you weren’t there.” 

“I’m sorry about that, Ms. Grant,” Kara said, frantically searching for an explanation that would both satisfy Cat and not turn into a liability should she ask for proof in the form of receipts and phone records. “I left a message with Miss Teschmacher that I was meeting with a source on my story about the Daxamite-caused housing crisis this morning.” 

It wasn’t a lie, or at least not quite. After all, Maggie’s building had been condemned after the Daxamite invasion; had been so badly damaged, in fact, that Alex had talked Kara into sneaking Maggie in through her bedroom window the middle of the night so she could retrieve her clothes and bonsai trees before the city took a wrecking ball to the place. Of course, Kara’s meeting with Maggie had actually been a quick breakfast at the apartment before they went to the DEO for the morning status update, but Cat didn’t need to know that. As far as anyone outside the Superfriends inner circle knew, Alex was on detached assignment in Switzerland for the foreseeable future. 

“Hm,” Cat said, and Kara looked up, meeting that piercing hazel gaze for the first time since she walked in. Cat narrowed her eyes as if she was seeing right through the fib, and Kara tucked her hands in the pockets of her maroon pants and looked away, scrutinizing the nearest potted plant as if her life depended on it. Then came that single, thoroughly loaded syllable a second time. “Hm.”

“It’s coming along well,” Kara said, trying to remember the last thing she’d done on the story before Alex’s disappearance had thrust it to the back burner. “I have a quote from an engineering firm about what it will take to get the areas most heavily damaged back to livable conditions, and a city planner named Robin Harkness said she’d go on the record about the city’s plans for redeveloping those areas more sustainably, and…”

“Yes, yes, it all sounds wonderful, keep going.” Cat jammed a different pair of glasses onto her face, her attention already back on her correspondence. “Two thousand words on my desk by Wednesday morning, and if it seems promising, it may increase to five for the Sunday feature.”

“Yes, Ms. Grant.” Kara nodded, wondering how in the world she was going to pull the story together by Wednesday, much less expand it to more than twice the word count before the weekend edition. She backed toward the office door, saying, “I’ll just…”

“Yes, that. Chop chop,” Cat said, flicking her fingers in dismissal.

Kara fled through the door, pausing long enough to pull her glasses down and check for James. He wasn’t in his office, but before she could zero in on his actual location, her phone dinged. _I’m stopping by if you have time._

The text was from Maggie, and Kara fired back a quick, emphatic reply. _I’ll make time. You get something?_

 _Maybe._ There was a long pause where Maggie stopped and started typing several times. Finally she said, _Better to explain when I get there. Twenty minutes._

Kara decided to make the most of the time she had before Maggie’s arrival by organizing her notes on the housing story so she could start to break it into an outline. She’d managed to get it into fairly good shape when she heard a now-familiar heartbeat draw near. Maggie stepped off the elevator, her jacket, Henley, and skin-tight jeans — all black, of course — standing out amidst all the sea of khakis and cardigans surrounding her. She headed straight for Kara’s desk, her quick, confident stride slowed by a weariness that seemed to go bone-deep. It was so unlike Maggie’s usual swagger that Kara felt the need to tip her glasses down and take a peek to make sure that there was nothing wrong besides too little sleep and too much caffeine. But Maggie’s heart was beating just fine, except for being broken in two. 

“Hi,” Maggie said, and slumped into the chair next to Kara’s desk. “Have you talked to Winn?”

“Not in the last half hour.” Kara leaned forward, keeping her voice deliberately low just in case someone might be listening, and said, “I’m going to get my butt handed to me if I don’t get a story in soon, but I’ll fly by the DEO at lunch to check in.”

“Well, this isn’t exactly official yet.” Maggie slid her phone out of her jacket pocket and turned it so Kara could look at the screen. “I got a couple of text messages this morning from an unknown caller who claims to have information about Alex.”

Kara took the phone in her hand, pushing her glasses firmly onto the bridge of her nose so she could more easily read the two messages. 

_Unknown 9:40 am: I know where she is._

_Unknown 9:42 am: If you want to see her again, you have to trust me._

“Oh, Rao,” Kara breathed, yanking the iPhone out of Maggie’s hand and scanning the messages a second time. She looked up at Maggie, feeling hope flood through her for the first time in weeks. “Do you have any idea who it’s from?”

“Winn is backtracing the SMS,” Maggie said, and beneath her veneer of caution, Kara could see a flush of excitement at the idea that they might, finally, have a lead. “Looks like whoever sent it bounced it off a bunch of dummy IPs before it finally got to me. For now, Winn’s dead-ended at a location somewhere in Indonesia.”

“You think Cadmus could have a facility there?” Kara asked, trying to remember if Lena had ever mentioned Indonesia when she talked about L-Corp’s overseas locations. She knew Lena wouldn’t willingly assist her mother after how she had nearly forced Lena into unleashing Lex’s worst creations on the world, but Lillian had a way of bypassing security on Luthor-owned properties and converting them to her own devices. _My mother can smell weakness the way a mastiff can smell blood,_ Lena had said when Kara had asked her about it once. _Add in her knack for breaking the encryption on my personnel files, and it’s a race against time to see which of my employees she can exploit before I figure it out and move them to a less sensitive position._

“I think…” Maggie looked down at the phone, a tensed muscle in her cheek the only visible sign of the turmoil that Kara knew was raging just beneath the surface. “I think maybe the only way to find out is for me to reply to this text.”

Kara drew in a breath to say that she was ready to back Maggie up if that’s what she wanted to do, but before she could, a familiar voice sailed over the newsroom once again. 

“Keeeeeeeeeeiiiiiirrrrraaaaaaaaaaa….”

“Oh, Rao,” Kara said, though this time it was less a prayer and more a plea for mercy. She glanced toward Cat’s office before returning Maggie’s phone. “I have to go deal with this, but if you decide to text whomever that is, please call me? And after work I’ll check out that place in Indonesia, just to cover our bases.” 

“Thanks, Kara.” Maggie rose as, together, they walked across the newsroom, pausing just outside of Cat’s office. Maggie started to peel off, saying, “I’ll text you once I —“

“Oh, no, Detective Sawyer,” Kara heard, and turned to see Cat standing at the entrance to her office, her mouth set in the sort of firm line that set the hairs on the back of Kara’s neck on end. “I’ll need you to be joining us too.”

Maggie’s eyes slid over to Kara’s, the look in them one of desperate hope that Kara could get her out of this, but Kara just shrugged and bobbed her head toward the office. She sat down in the exact spot that Cat pointed to on the white couch opposite her own, gesturing for Maggie, who had followed in her wake, to do the same. James was already there, sitting alongside Cat’s preferred spot with his elbows braced on his knees. He looked up at Kara, something sheepish in his dark eyes, and that’s when she knew they were busted.

“Ms. Grant,” she said, trying to head off her boss at the pass. “You’ve met Maggie, right? She’s engaged to my sister Alex…”

“And is having the wedding of the year the weekend before Thanksgiving, one for which I mysteriously did not receive an invitation.” Cat sat down next to James, straightening the pleats in her black trousers before crossing one green Louboutin over the other. She lifted one hand to her neck, fiddling with the thick silver chain arranged atop her emerald green blouse, and ran her eyes over each of them. “When I see you, James, and you, Keira, huddled in corners having furtive conversations several times a day, I don’t give it much thought considering you both think this to be appropriate workplace behavior and have since the day I hired you.” 

“We’re just…” Kara started to say, only to fall silent when Cat shot her a withering glance.

“Conferring on art for your housing story. I know.” Cat turned her attention to Maggie, the annoyance on her face yielding to something more thoughtful. “But when I see a decorated member of the NCPD and one of the heroes of the Daxamite invasion joining in on the fun, especially when she is presumably on the city’s clock, I start to wonder what is going on. And I’ll bet…” She pointed at the phone in Maggie’s hand. “…that if I looked at that phone, I would see Winslow’s name all over it.”

“Cat,” James said, in that quiet voice he used when he was trying to make her see reason. “There are things going on here that it might be better for you not to know.”

“Another alien invasion? A mind-control weapon? A plague?” Cat crossed her arms in front of her, setting her shoulders in a determined line. “Because if you three, as journalists and public servants, are abrogating your duty to notify the public about an imminent threat, I —“

“Alex is missing,” Maggie said, her voice slicing through Cat’s diatribe with a terseness that left the media mogul sitting open-mouthed. “She was taken by Cadmus three weeks ago, and Kara and James have been helping me chase down leads.”

Cat blinked, snapped her mouth back shut, and looked over at Kara, one eyebrow arched to what looked like a painful height. “You mean those nice black-clad people at your sister’s super-secret alien conspiracy-thwarting government agency haven’t been able to locate her?” Her head tilted to the side as she added, with surprising gentleness, “Not even Supergirl?”

“Not even Supergirl,” Kara said, that quick glimpse of kindness bringing tears to her eyes. She blinked them away, quietly saying, “James and I have been working our sources in hopes there might be some chatter in both alien and anti-alien circles, but no one seems to know anything. It’s like Alex has vanished off the face of the earth.”

“Which could literally be the case, considering interstellar travel seems easier than booking a seat on the red-eye to Heathrow these days.” Cat folded her hands in her lap and looked over at Maggie, her sympathy couched in the sort of practicality that Kara had come to expect in a crisis. “I’m so sorry, Detective Sawyer. All of CatCo’s resources are, of course, at your disposal. I can have this on the front page within a day.” She glanced at Kara, a slight hint of rebuke in her tone as she added, “I’m sure you won’t mind that your housing article gets bumped under the circumstances.”

“That’s very kind,” Maggie said. She hesitated, glancing over at James, then at Kara, as if to ask, _Should I?_

Kara nodded. “We can trust Ms. Grant.”

That seemed to be enough for Maggie, for she turned, her brown eyes fixing on Cat. “Our concern is that if Alex’s kidnapping becomes public knowledge, it may provoke Cadmus into taking drastic action. Our working theory is that she is being…” 

Maggie paused, her voice catching, and Kara reached across the space between them, her hand resting on Maggie’s shoulder. Maggie tensed at first, as if surprised by the comforting gesture, but then she turned, looking up at Kara through the dark fringe of her lashes before reaching over to squeeze Kara’s hand. Then she squared her shoulders and said in a low, determined rasp, “We think Alex is being programmed for use as a Cadmus agent. They tried inserting a sleeper agent into the DEO once before, so they probably won’t do that again, but her technical skills and knowledge of DEO procedures….”

“Would make her an exceedingly useful weapon in their pursuit of…whatever they’re pursuing this week.” Cat sat back and crossed her arms, her irritation so palpable that Kara could almost see it pulsating like Kryptonite under her skin. “You know, the older I get, the more tedious these fascists and their purity campaigns become.”

Just then Maggie’s phone dinged, and Kara glanced over, her heart skipping a beat at the sound. “Is that…”

Maggie glanced at the phone and nodded, maintaining her calm demeanor in spite of the newly arrived message. She returned her attention to Cat, every inch the unflappable police detective, and said, “Ms. Grant, I am asking you to please keep this information confidential for now, both as a member of the NCPD and as Alex’s fiancée. We can’t risk this getting out before she’s rescued.”

“Of course, Detective.” Maggie got to her feet, and Cat followed, reaching across the space between the couches to offer a firm handshake. “If there is anything I can do to assist, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Thank you.” Maggie turned toward Kara, that mask of dogged, weary determination set over her features once again. “I’ll text you after I check in with Winn.”

“Please do,” Kara said, watching as Maggie strode toward the elevator, her phone already pressed to her ear. She couldn’t quite shake the sense that Maggie was about to do something crazy — perhaps equally as crazy as when she had stolen DEO tech to break Peter Thompson out of Albatross Bay in a last-ditch effort to find Alex before she drowned in that tank. It made Kara want to follow her, if only to protect her from herself, so that Alex would have someone to come home to.

“That was certainly not what I expected,” Cat said, her words reminding Kara that it didn’t do to let her guard down when her boss was paying attention. She turned just in time to see Cat returning to her seat, her hands clasped loosely in front of her. “Keira, I have to ask. Does your future sister-in-law always dress as if she’s auditioning for the finale of _Grease_?”

“Sometimes she wears plaid,” Kara replied, and heard James chuckle under his breath. 

“Hm.” Cat sank back against the couch cushions, her brow furrowing. “I meant what I said. Any resources, official or otherwise, that CatCo can offer to assist with locating your sister are available to you.” Cat held up one perfectly manicured index finger, adding, “All I ask is that, if or when it is safe to do so, CatCo get the exclusive rights on the story of how that psychopath Lillian Luthor ended up in a tiny plastic box with no Wi-Fi or access to triple shot soy latte until the end of her days.”

“I don’t think anyone would complain about that,” James said. He turned toward Cat, gratitude in his gaze. “Thank you for your help, Cat. It means a lot to…” He glanced over at Kara, something gentling in his voice. “To people who are like family to me.”

“Anything for the silent protectors of National City,” Cat replied, before gesturing toward the newsroom. “Now go earn your salary, for a few minutes at least.”

James nodded and got to his feet, pushing down the sleeves of his dark blue v-neck sweater. “Kara, you want to swing by my office and we can talk about next steps?”

“I need to stop at my desk first.” Kara followed James to the door, pausing at the entrance before turning back to Cat. She had moved from the couch to her desk by then, and was just settling into her office chair. “Ms. Grant, I just wanted to say thank you.”

“For?” Cat arched an eyebrow. “Keira, I haven’t done anything other than express the appropriate concern over a situation that I’m sure has been terribly hard on you and your family.”

“I know…but.” Kara searched for a more eloquent way of expressing her gratitude, but she felt tongue-tied, the immensity of it too much to articulate. She settled, finally, for the same sort of simplicity that Cat was always encouraging her to use in her writing. “Just…thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Cat said, and for a split second, Kara thought Cat was about to smile. Then she looked down at her paperwork, flicking her fingers dismissively. “Now chop chop. You’ve got a sister to save.”

“Yes, Ms. Grant,” Kara said, and headed toward the door.

\-----

It had started like this: 

“It’s one in the afternoon and you’re still glowing,” Kara said as Alex came out of the locker room, clad in her standard-issue, skin-tight black uniform. “Do I even want to know?”

“Probably not,” Alex said, her smirk reminding Kara of every accidentally glimpsed image she’d ever had of Alex and Maggie during late-night fly-bys. 

“Oh, Rao.” Kara wrinkled her nose, letting her Supergirl persona drop, just for a second, to nudge Alex in the shoulder. “You two are so sickeningly gross.”

“We really are,” Alex said. She had this dreamy look on her face, the same one that had been there about ninety percent of the time since she and Maggie had started dating. Being around that kind of happiness had been hard to tolerate for a long time following Mon-El’s departure, but in the last few weeks, something had shifted. In fact, there were days when Kara was almost looking forward to the wedding.

Still, Alex seemed to mentally check herself as she glanced over. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to glow all over you.”

“Alex, I told you, you’re not.” Kara tried to tuck her hands in her pockets, realized for the thousandth time that she didn’t have any in her Super suit, and settled for crossing them in front of her. “So, I guess we have to postpone brunch until next weekend.”

“If there’s time,” Alex said, and that faraway look was back. “The next month is going to be…” 

She trailed off as J’onn called out their names, her shoulders straightening as she downshifted from Alex Danvers, blushing bride, to Alex Danvers, badass DEO agent. Kara matched her stride for stride as they came to a halt, hands on hips, forming a loose semi-circle across from J’onn and Winn. 

“What’ve we got?” Alex asked, her voice all business.

“A warehouse, possibly with Cadmus tech.” J’onn crossed his arms in front of him and nodded toward Winn. “I’ll let you do the honors, Agent Schott.”

“This place is owned by a subsidiary of L-Corp that Lillian used to use as a front, but it’s been dead quiet for close to a year,” Winn said, pulling up a picture of a run-down three-story building in the heart of the warehouse district. 

“I recognize that place,” Alex said. “It’s on the list of buildings Lena gave us after the Medusa virus incident.” 

“Yeah, and it was gross,” Kara said, remembering the dank, moldy building. It had been an animal rendering plant at one time, she recalled, and it still stank like one. “They used to chop up cows in there!”

“As you reminded me, over and over again, for the next week,” Winn said, wincing at the memory.

Alex looked over at Kara, her mouth curving in a knowing smirk. “Funny, that’s exactly how long that vow you made to never eat another hamburger lasted.”

Winn let out a snort, and Kara turned her gaze on him, quietly muttering, “You know I could char-broil you with my eyes, right?”

J’onn quietly cleared his throat. “Children…”

“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir,” Alex said, though her eyes were still dancing with glee. “Please continue.” 

“Anyway, a few nights back we starting picking up activity off satellite feeds,” Winn said, the screen behind him splitting into quarters to show multiple video streams. “Trucks going in and out, that sort of thing. And then last night…” 

He hit a key, and the image on the screen changed again, this time to an infrared view that showed several people huddled around a large piece of equipment on the warehouse floor. 

Kara squinted. “That looks…”

"Like the device that Lillian used to try to infect every alien on the planet with the Medusa virus?” Winn nodded. “Yeah, that.”

Kara felt Alex stiffen beside her, her face hardening with disgust at the notion that Lillian might try the same stunt again. “Right. We have to get in there.”

“Two teams, with a Alex as Trap Leader.” J’onn looked over at Kara, his dark eyes grave but steady. “Supergirl, I want you to provide air support on this one, at least until the team gets inside and can determine if the device is active. If Lillian is trying to go after aliens again, I wouldn’t put it out of the realm of possibility that her motive is to target you.”

Kara frowned, her irritation rising at the idea of behind held back when Alex and the others were at risk. “I should be able to see inside the warehouse well before I get close enough to be affected.”

“Just let us get in there and take a look first,” Alex said, resting a hand on Kara’s elbow. She leaned in close, murmuring, “Besides, I’d hate to have you turn vegetarian again right before the wedding.”

“You guys did decide on those crab cake things, right?” Kara asked, pumping her fist when Alex nodded. She straightened, pulling her cape smooth as she squared her shoulders. “Okay, let’s get this over with, because now I’m starving.”

“As always,” Winn said in a singsong voice, and grinned at her before turning to his computer. 

Kara pulled a face at him, but then J’onn said, “I’ll command tactical from here,” and that, more than anything else, helped her get into mission mode. “Be safe, both of you.”

Alex nudged her on the shoulder and murmured, “Dinner at that Vietnamese place on the waterfront if we get done in time.”

“If this turns out to be nothing, you’re buying,” Kara replied.

“I can find a way to make it something, believe me,” Alex said, with that cocky, almost obnoxious confidence that Kara had spent the better part of her life on Earth trying to best.

Then Alex was off, calling out for tactical teams Alpha and Beta to gear up and get to the SUVs. Ten minutes later they were speeding down the highway, blasting through bumper-to-bumper traffic on the 110 until they reached the section of the warehouse district where the building was located. Much of the surrounding area had been destroyed by the Daxamites, but somehow this ugly gray rectangle of a building, with its blackened and boarded windows, had survived. But then again, Kara thought, it looked like the sort of building that could survive an apocalypse while others around it crumbled to dust.

“Perfect hideout for Lillian,” Kara said as she scanned the building for activity. There didn’t seem to be any humans inside; just piles of empty crates and discarded equipment, plus the mysterious tech that had set off this expedition.

And rats, of course. So many rats.

“Beta Team, you sweep the second and third floors,” Alex said, her voice crisp over the comm. “Alpha Team, you’re with me.” 

“Proceed with caution, Trap Leader,” J’onn said over the comm. “Backup is on standby if you need it.”

“Copy that,” Alex said, her hair flashing red in the sun as she jumped out of the SUV. The rest of her squad followed, two sets of four agents disappearing into the building’s long shadow. Kara heard the squeak of a rusty door, the rattle of metal, and then they were in. 

It was quiet after that; Kara hovered perhaps a quarter of a mile above the building, scanning with her x-ray vision for any dangers within or without. If she focused she could hear each team’s low, deliberately calm breathing, the step of heavy boots on metal stairs, the quiet gestures as they swept the building for anything that might be construed as a trap. 

“Okay, we’re clear on the ground floor,” Alex said, her voice crackling over the comm. “Beta Team, what’s your position?”

“All clear on level two,” Vasquez replied. “Headed to three now.” 

“Stay sharp,” Alex said. “Cantor and Childress, start pulling readings on the device. Chernow, you and I will check the basement. Supergirl, can you —“

She broke off as the screech of dragging metal reverberated over the comms, the sound coming from deep within the building. 

“Vas, was that you?” Alex asked, a sudden wariness in her voice.

“No, ma’am,” Vasquez replied. “We’re still on three.” 

And Kara saw it then; the sudden swarm of movement from beneath the basement, as if coming out of the earth itself. “Alex, you’ve got four, maybe five guys in the basement, headed your way.” 

Alex whispered, “Shit,” under her breath, the sound so low that it wasn’t audible on the comm. But Kara could hear it, and with it, the worry in her sister’s voice. 

“Beta Team, finish your sweep of the third floor, then return to level one to secure the device,” Alex said after a moment’s consideration. “Cantor, hold position until they arrive. Rest of Alpha Team, you’re with me.” There was a pause, and then she added, “Supergirl, if you wanted to join us, now would be the time.” 

“On my way,” Kara said, already swooping toward the building. She was almost there when, out of nowhere, she was blindsided by a hard blow to the temple. She reeled, spinning and tumbling through the air, then across the cracked pavement, until she ground to a stop. She heard a thud as a pair of heavy boots landed perhaps ten feet away and looked up, squinting against the bright sun that bored straight into her eyes.

“Kara Zor-El,” Hank Henshaw said, his mouth splitting into a grin made all the more unnatural by the cybernetics covering half his face. “Ready for round two?”

“More than ready,” Kara growled and clenched her fists, powering off the ground and aiming herself like a missile straight at Henshaw’s midsection. He pivoted, turning just fast enough to sidestep the blow. A hand snaked out to catch at her elbow as she passed, and she felt herself caught, her shoulder wrenched as he flung her in the direction of the building. She blasted through the wall, scraping across concrete and grime and several years’ worth of rat droppings until she slammed, hard, against the tech they had come here to investigate. It rang like a gong, threatening to tip over, as Kara dragged herself to her feet, bracing herself for Henshaw’s next onslaught.

And that’s when the shooting started. 

“Alpha Team under fire,” Alex shouted over the comm. “Repeat, Alpha Team under fire. Agent down. Agent down!”

Kara had just enough time to scan through the floor beneath her, filtering through the steel-reinforced beams until she could focus on the narrow chamber beneath her. _The abattoir,_ she thought, her nostrils filling up with the stench of that dark, ugly place. She saw one body down, another falling, and then only Alex was left, firing hard and fast with a gun in each hand.

 _She’s in trouble,_ Kara thought, but before she could do anything, Henshaw slammed into her again. She skittered across the floor, dragging huge divots into the concrete as, behind her, five rifles erupted in unison. 

Henshaw growled and swatted the bullets away, snatching a large piece of debris off the floor and hurling it in the direction of Vasquez’s team. Kara saw them scatter and yelled, “Take cover!” before she was up again, soaring across the intervening space to knock the jagged chunk of metal out of the way. “Winn, we need backup!” 

“On its way!” Winn said, his reply disrupted by a sudden whoosh as an eight-foot tall Green Martian soared through the hole in the side of the warehouse. J’onn went straight for Henshaw as Kara rolled out of the way. She heard another spate of gunfire from the basement, its sound accompanied by Alex letting out a yell of sustained fury. Her roar turned into a cry of startled terror, one that was quickly followed by a shriek of metal, and then an engine engaging. 

“We’ve lost Alex’s tracker!” Winn shouted, and Kara heard panic in his voice. She felt her heart thud in her chest, the fear that rose up in her clamping down so hard that she barely reacted in time to avoid Henshaw diving for her, one meaty fist cocked to swing at her jaw. 

But J’onn was there, and he caught Henshaw from behind and flung him away, shouting, “Go, Supergirl!”

Kara clawed to her feet, using her Super speed to blast through the basement door and down into the abattoir. It was dark, her x-ray vision the only thing allowing her to see that Childress was dead and Chernow was bleeding heavily enough that she might be soon. 

And Alex was gone, a rectangular opening in the floor the only indication as to where she’d gone.

Kara ducked her head through the opening, which she assumed had once been used to remove offal and other waste. It led into a tunnel on the sub-basement level that was wide enough to fit a flatbed semi, though a quick scan showed it was already empty. 

“Winn, we need roadblocks! Fast as you can get them!” Kara yelled, catching a glimpse of Vasquez’s startled face on the stairs. She didn’t have time to explain, simply blasted straight upward through four levels of flooring, careful to avoid any supporting beams so she didn’t take the whole building down. Emerging through the roof, she spat out dust and debris as she went still further upward, needing the right level of height to be able to find the tunnel’s opening. It had to be on the far side of the complex, very near the freeway on ramp, but it was….

 _There, already on the freeway._ A plain, white, panel-sided semi trailer pulled by a green cab. That had to be it…

…only the bed was lined with lead, and she couldn’t see inside it.

“You bitch,” Kara muttered under her breath, considering whether, this time, she might finally give Lillian the justice she deserved: A stint on Fort Rozz, perhaps, or maybe a quick trip to the moon without an air tank. She soared toward the semi, punching through its roof with one quick blow and then peeling it back far enough to look inside. 

She expected to see Alex, surrounded by Cadmus agents. Instead, she found case after case of water bottles, stacked up like soldiers in formation.

“What the…” Kara yelled, pushing off the shuddering, near-crippled semi. Up and up she went, two hundred feet, three, her eyes scanning every truck she could see. There were literally dozens of them this close to the 110-105 interchange, bogged down in the right lane like ants in a row.

And each one lined with lead. Every single one of them, lined with lead. 

“Supergirl,” J’onn said, his voice rough and ragged like he’d just gone ten rounds with a prizefighter. “Can you see her?”

“No,” Kara said, feeling the truth seep like poison into her veins. “No, I can’t see her.”

There were too many trucks, and no way to search them all in time.

Alex was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for: Violence


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maggie sends a text - and gets a surprising response.
> 
> Please see end notes for trigger warnings.

_Unknown 11:03 am: We need to meet._

Maggie took a sip of her beer and stared at the text she had received while she was at CatCo, her eyes boring into the phone as if she could somehow see past the screen, down through the WiFi connections and satellite links that would lead her to whomever was on the other side. She needed something: a face, a name, a clue as to whether she was being fucked with by someone who got off on the idea of torturing her. Anything, no matter how small, to indicate whether this text was a step closer to Alex — or a one way ticket to a bullet in the back of the head.

The need to force a break in the case, regardless of consequences, was why she was sitting on a barstool in Dollywood in the middle of the afternoon, waiting for this mystery texter to show up. It wasn’t the way she liked to do things; she would have preferred to back trace the origin of the texts and set up proper surveillance, all while continuing to work her contact for corroborating intel. But a Hail Mary play — and the trap she might be walking into by making it — was all that was left now that Winn had hit a brick wall. 

“We’re still stuck on Indonesia,” Winn had said when she stopped by the DEO after her visit to CatCo. “I’m sorry. I know that’s not what you want to hear.”

“Winn, don’t apologize,” Maggie replied, swallowing down her frustration for fear she would take it out on him. “You’ve been working just as hard as I have.”

And he had, pulling all-nighter after all-nighter in futile database and security footage searches, scouring every scrap of intel for some clue as to where Cadmus might have moved their operations. All of their leads had turned into dead ends: The security feed and satellite searches went nowhere, the engineer at Edge Global who had put the thousands of lead-lined semi trailers on the market into production had disappeared, the device in the warehouse where Alex was captured turned out to be a hollow shell with no working parts. The lack of progress was taking its toll on Winn too, for he looked haggard, his skin pasty, eyes red from lack of sleep. And Maggie couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen his infectious smile. 

But Winn wasn’t in the mood for the kind of positive reinforcement she’d learned in the NCPD’s task force leadership training. “How hard I work doesn’t matter,” he snapped, the sharp edge in his voice an echo of the bitter self-loathing that had been simmering in Maggie’s own guts for weeks. “This is my job, Maggie. This is what I’m supposed to do and I just…I can’t break through this one. Everywhere we turn, it’s just another dead end. And Alex is out there somewhere with no one to help her and I…” His fist slammed down on the desk beside his keyboard. “We’re failing her, and I can’t stand that.”

Tears sprang to Maggie’s eyes, and she tightened her jaw and blinked them away, her fists clenching so hard that her fingernails pressed tiny crescents into her palms. Winn reached toward her, his expression softening as anger turned to sympathy, but she just shook her head, turning her face to the side until she could rein in her emotions. She couldn’t help Alex if she was falling apart; she had to stay focused, to keep searching until she found the chink in Cadmus’s armor that would get her in. 

She sat down in the chair next to his, bracing her elbows on her knees, and clasped her hands in front of her. Leaning in, she waited for Winn to look over at her, then longer still, until she was sure that he was actually listening. “One of the things I’ve learned in my job is that if you can’t figure something out, it’s either because you don’t have enough information or you’re looking at it from the wrong angle. So we have to dig as hard as we can, and then we have to step back and really look until the pieces of the puzzle start to make sense. That’s what Alex would do for us, and so that’s what we’re going to do for her. Okay?”

Winn swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing, and then nodded once. “Okay.” He straightened his shoulders, swiveling his chair toward his terminal and pulling his keyboard into position. “Though I’m pretty sure Alex’s version of this would include a lot more shooting and rappelling out of helicopters.”

The joke, weak as it was, eased some of the tension, and Maggie sat back, waiting for Winn to type in the command codes that gave him access to the system. “Where should we dig next?” he asked, a renewed determination in his voice.

“In the simplest place possible,” Maggie said, and with that, she slid her phone out of her pocket and typed a text. 

_The speakeasy in the alley off 12th between Flower and Figueroa. 2 p.m. Password is “Dollywood.”_

She hit ‘send’ and glanced over at Winn, seeing his eyes light up in astonishment as the realization took hold. “Wait, whoa. You just…did you…”

“Dig a big hole?” Maggie asked, tucking her phone away. “Yeah, I did. And now I’m going to go see what comes out of it.”

She clapped him on the shoulder and got to her feet, striding toward the elevator across the DEO’s freshly polished tile. She heard Winn sputtering behind her, followed by a panicked, “Wait a minute, Maggie. Shouldn’t you have backup?”

“I will,” Maggie said, and let the elevator doors close.

She looked over at that backup now. “Anything?”

M’gann glanced around the sparsely populated bar, making a show of drying the glass in her hand when, in reality, she was scanning the minds of its patrons. 

“Nothing,” she said after a moment. “Though the couple in the back are debating whether to cheat on their spouses, and I could get you a hot tip on a jewelry heist about to go down.” 

Maggie tilted her head to the side. “The Roltikkon?” 

M’gann nodded.

“That guy’s nothing but a mugger with delusions of grandeur,” Maggie said, laughing for the first time in more days than she could count. “Though it might be a good idea to keep an eye on your tips when he’s around.” 

“That’s good to know.” M’gann wiped a rag across the bar, gently saying, “I did my best not to read you, in case you were wondering.” 

“It’s not like I’m thinking anything you don’t already know,” Maggie replied, fiddling with her engagement ring. Every twist and turn of it felt like a tug on her heart, reminding her of the aching emptiness where Alex should be. “It all boils down to wanting her back safe.”

“J’onn will do everything he can to rescue Alex. He loves her like a daughter.” M’gann hesitated for a moment, compassion in her brown eyes, before adding, “He feels that way about you too, you know.” 

“Glad someone does,” Maggie said, a dark edge to her tone, and saw M’gann nod in understanding. She’d returned from Mars with J’onn soon after the wedding shower, just in time to let Maggie drink away its aftereffects with the good Scotch M’gann reserved for special occasions. Alex had been annoyed with Maggie afterwards, though not in the way that Maggie had expected her to be.

“If you’re going to pop for the expensive stuff, at least do it when I don’t have to work late so I can enjoy it too,” she’d said as she all-but-carried Maggie to bed. 

Maggie had just mumbled a wordless reply into the pillow and fallen asleep, immediately dropping into a booze-soaked nightmare in which she was chased through the cornfield next to her childhood home by an Infernian who was trying to burn her alive. Only the voice he spoke in wasn’t his own, but her father’s, and the words he said burned worse than the fire. 

She jolted awake multiple times, sometimes shivering, sometimes screaming. And every time, Alex just held her, and made her drink water, and then soothed her back to sleep. 

Maggie had been prepared for anger the next morning, or at least some sort of therapy-inspired conversation about how it would be better to talk first before one of them went on a bender, but Alex had simply handed Maggie coffee and made her eggs and then held her hair when she immediately threw up both. And then, as if to prove that she was the greatest fiancée ever, Alex had taken the morning off so they could lay on the couch together with the TV playing softly in the background while Maggie napped away her only day off that entire week. 

“I suppose this wasn’t the healthiest way to work out my feelings,” she’d said at one point as she lay with her head tucked into Alex’s chest.

“No, but dads are tough,” Alex said, pressing a kiss to the crown of Maggie’s head. “I mean, I drank us dry and then got myself suspended from work over mine.” 

“Yeah, but the next day you got out of bed and saved a whole spaceship full of people from being forcibly deported to the other side of the galaxy,” Maggie pointed out. “All I’m doing is laying here feeling sorry for myself and making you miss work.”

“You’re forgetting that I almost got myself forcibly deported too,” Alex said in a low, amused whisper. 

Maggie shivered at the reminder, and Alex murmured a soft “Oh, no,” in apology before drawing the blanket they shared more tightly around them both. She threaded her fingers through Maggie’s hair, gently kneading her scalp until Maggie was purring, her muscles and joints easing until she felt almost liquid under Alex’s hands. 

“It’s okay to have a meltdown once in a while, Mags,” Alex said, nuzzling her cheek against Maggie’s forehead. “And when it happens, my job is to make you feel safe until you’re strong again.”

“So we’re okay?” Maggie asked, her voice cracking on the words. 

Alex lifted a hand to Maggie’s jaw, her thumb stroking gently until Maggie turned to look at her. “We’re more than okay,” she said, and then leaned forward, easing Maggie into a slow, gentle, unhurried kiss, the sort that might have been a prelude to something else had Maggie not been so sick she could barely eat toast. When it was over, Alex brushed their noses together, murmuring, “Well, except for the barf breath.”

Maggie had laughed and settled back into Alex’s chest, secure in the knowledge that Alex, with her big heart, could love her in spite of her failings. Only now that certainty felt hollow, its promise tainted by an awareness of just how much trouble she was in if Alex was gone for good. 

She was snapped out of her brooding by a familiar voice barking out a drink order. “Two Coronas for table five, and an Old Fashioned for that idiot in the back who thinks he’s Don Draper.”

“Hey, Darla,” Maggie said, looking down the length of the bar to where her ex was waiting for M’gann to fill her orders. 

“Oh, hey, Mags,” Darla replied, her voice dripping with its usual disdain. “Flying solo again?”

“Not now, Darla,” M’gann said, a rare note of rebuke in her tone. 

“Just curious,” Darla sniffed as she unloaded the empty glasses from her tray. She stacked them in the bins behind the bar, clattering the glasses together so loudly that it almost drowned out the blues-rock beat blaring from the jukebox.

Maggie did her best to ignore the annoyance, checking her phone yet again to see if another text had arrived. But there was still no reply, and she began to get that feeling, low and deep in her stomach, like she’d been stood up for a big date. Only this was much worse, because if her mystery texter really wasn’t going to show, then she was, essentially, back to square one.

And then Darla cleared her throat, and scowled, and walked over, slapping a manila envelope down next to Maggie’s beer. “Some guy was in here right after lunch. He said if I saw you I should give you this.” 

“I’ve been here for an hour,” Maggie said, snatching the envelope off the bar before it got wet from the thin line of condensation dripping off the edge of her cocktail napkin. “You didn’t think to give it to me before now?”

Darla just let out a derisive snort and walked back to the end of the bar to pick up her drink orders. Maggie felt a flash of an old, familiar irritation, but she set it aside, focusing instead on the envelope. Her hands were shaking, and she had to pause, steadying herself by balling her hands into fists, before she extracted the single photo from inside. 

It was an 8x10 glossy, color, of a woman dressed in DEO tactical gear, her head covered by a black hood. She was kneeling on the floor of what looked like the inside of a semi trailer, her arms bound behind her, wrists and ankles both encircled by manacles that were, in turn, fastened to the wall behind her by two thick chains. Her body was hunched forward as if she was struggling to keep her balance, perhaps against the motion of the truck. 

And there was a ring on her left hand: the same ring that Maggie had put there a little over four months ago.

Maggie pushed up from the barstool, trying to quell the nausea rising fast in her throat, and stormed down the bar. “Where is he?” she asked, unable to hold back the urgency in her tone.

“How am I supposed to know?” Darla snapped. Maggie pushed into Darla’s personal space, but the barmaid just sidestepped, shrugging her off with a terse, “He handed me that and he left.” 

“You do not want to fuck with me on this, Darla,” Maggie growled, and from the way Darla’s head snapped around, it seemed it was finally starting to dawn on her just how serious this was. “You can tell me everything now, or you can —“

“Maggie,” M’gann said, her sharp tone pulling Maggie up short. She turned toward M’gann and saw her gesture toward the door. “Alley.” 

Maggie bolted for the door, bursting outside into a clear fall afternoon, the slight hint of crispness in the air clearing away some of the alley’s usual stench. She barely had a chance to glance around before a voice to her left said, “Maggie.”

She whirled, drawing her weapon, and saw a tall, burly man emerge from the long shadows behind the dumpster. He had dark hair, and his eyes were brown — the same striking shade of brown that had caught Maggie’s attention on a tarmac a little over a year ago.

“Jeremiah?” Maggie gasped, her heart lurching as Alex’s father strode toward her, his left leg hitching with each step. The limp came from an old football injury, Maggie remembered; Alex’s dad had been a linebacker in college until a knee injury had forced him to give up the game. Funny what you remember, she thought, when the father of the woman you’re going to marry shows up with pictures of his daughter chained up in the back of a truck.

Jeremiah drew to a halt a few feet from her and stretched out his arms, his gray, military-style jacket unzipped to reveal he wasn’t carrying a weapon. “I’m just here to talk.”

“About the picture you left for me?” Maggie asked, sickened at the notion that Jeremiah not only knew about, but perhaps was even participating in Alex’s abuse. “Is that your new wallet snapshot of her?”

“I’m as upset as you are,” Jeremiah replied, though he didn’t sound angry so much as defensive. “But I needed to convince you I was for real before I revealed myself, and that seemed the best way.”

“You’ve convinced me, all right,” Maggie said, her weapon unwavering in her hand. “That picture tells me you’re back with Cadmus again and Alex’s faith in you was misplaced.”

“I’m not with them,” Jeremiah insisted, his words carrying the sort of vehemence that Maggie had come to associate with bad liars. “Cadmus is just a means to an end, nothing more.”

“I recall hearing that phrase a lot when I studied the Nuremberg trials in college,” Maggie said, and saw Jeremiah flinch at the comparison. “You telling me I’m wrong?”

Jeremiah squinted and let out a sigh before slowly lowering his hands. “From your reaction, I assume you believe that picture is real.”

Maggie ran through the details of the photo, now seared into her mind: the angle of the figure’s bent neck, so familiar to her from when Alex came home exhausted from too much time in her lab; the set of hips and thighs, each line and curve painstakingly learned by Maggie’s eyes and lips and hands; the fingers grasping at each other, though not quite able to reach. Alex would often weave her fingers together when she was frightened or stressed, a form of self-soothing that Maggie imagined she had learned when she was very young. It was genius, really; when Alex was scared or uncertain, she would hold her own hand. 

“It’s her,” Maggie said, her voice clipped, and as devoid as she could make it of any emotion. “From how long ago?”

“The day she was captured,” Jeremiah replied. “Lillian wanted proof before she gave the driver the location where Alex was to be taken.”

“And that is?” Maggie asked, fighting to keep the desperation out of her voice.

Jeremiah fell silent, his eyes darting around as if he was waiting for DEO agents to start popping out from behind garbage cans.

“Oh, come on.” Maggie grabbed a fistful of her black shirt and yanked it upward, revealing her bare midriff. “No wire, no other agents. Just me, your daughter’s fiancée, begging you to help me bring her home.”

“The ring was a surprise,” Jeremiah said, his face tightening as if the news had been unwelcome. It was, she thought, a stupid time to be discussing their wedding plans, but apparently Jeremiah’s default mode was magnanimous closet homophobe, no matter what the circumstances. “She must be happy if you’re already engaged.” 

“She would be even happier if she was with me and not with Cadmus, having God knows what done to her.” Maggie studied Jeremiah for a moment, weighing her options, before deciding to take a chance and holster her weapon. “Look, let’s bring this down a notch. You’ve seen the pictures. Does that mean you’ve actually set eyes on her?”

“Multiple times. In fact…” Jeremiah put out one hand, gesturing for Maggie to stay calm, and dug into the front pocket of his gray fatigues. He fished out an item, offering it to her on his outstretched palm. “This is the closest I could get to proof of life. I hope it’s enough for you.”

Maggie felt her heart jolt, its hard thump almost knocking her to her knees as she looked down at Alex’s engagement ring, the single diamond crusted with a thin sheen of blood. She reached out, her fingers trembling, and pulled the titanium band from his grasp, her eyes darting to it, then Jeremiah, and back to the ring again.

“The blood,” she said, those few small sips of beer roiling in her stomach like she’d spent the afternoon downing red cups at a kegger. “Is it…hers?”

“Some, I think,” Jeremiah replied, his tone solemn. “Based on how the guys who brought her in looked, I’d say some of it was theirs too.”

“That’s my girl,” Maggie murmured. She slipped the ring over her left middle finger, the only place, short of her pocket, where she knew it would stay put. The sound of Alex’s band against her own triggered a memory of all the times they’d clanked them together before they’d learned how to weave their fingers without getting tangled. _Maybe we shouldn’t wear them in bed,_ Alex had said, before Maggie whispered, _But I never want to take mine off,_ and what had followed had been —

 _Focus,_ she chided herself, her eyes snapping back around to fix on Jeremiah’s face. She tightened her jaw and swallowed, her face settling into the neutral expression she had taught herself to wear when questioning an uncooperative witness. “So you’ve put eyes on her and managed to smuggle out her ring. Why haven’t you tried smuggling her out instead?”

“Because Lillian keeps her close at all times,” Jeremiah replied, a hint of contempt in his voice, as if Maggie was a fool to even ask the question. “Alex is both her protection and her...pet project, I guess you could say.”

“And you’re part of it?” Maggie asked, an icy thread of terror running through her at the thought of what sort of ‘pet projects’ Lillian Luthor might find interesting. “Or at least close enough to know about it?”

“I have a role,” Jeremiah conceded. “But I have my own agenda, I swear. And once my mission’s been accomplished, I’ll do everything I can to get Alex out of there.” 

“Your…” Maggie drew in a sharp breath, trying hard not to choke on her response. “Your _mission?”_

“There’s more at stake than you realize,” Jeremiah said, those big, meaty, football player hands rising in entreaty. “I know it seems like I should find a way to break her out the first chance I get, but there are bigger things at stake here. Alex would be the first person to recognize that.” 

“So you’re using your own daughter as a pawn in some chess game against…Lillian? The DEO?” Maggie had always been sickened at the thought of physical violence against suspects, but it took everything she had to stop herself from thinking about what it would feel like to land a hard, fast punch to Jeremiah’s throat. “You think Eliza would be okay with that? Or Kara?”

“You leave them out of this,” Jeremiah said, his face hardening, and Maggie knew that she’d taken it a step too far; that she’d lost him, at least for today. “My family is not your concern.”

“You see these?” Maggie lifted her left hand, letting both rings flash in the sun. “These rings mean Alex is my family now, and that means Eliza and Kara are too. So I don’t care how important what you think you’re doing is, because every moment that goes by without Alex is a moment that hurts them. You think about that when you’re stonewalling me on how to find her.”

“I’m not…that’s not why I came here.” Jeremiah rubbed his forehead, and for the first time, Maggie saw guilt, as if he knew on some level that what he was doing was wrong. She filed the knowledge away, hoping she could find a way to work it later. For now, she realized the best thing to do was keep him talking. 

“Then why?” Maggie asked, deliberately gentling her voice. “Jeremiah, you have to know that all I want in this world is Alex out of Lillian’s hands and back with her family. Why won’t you help me do that?” 

“I will, when it’s time.” Jeremiah’s mouth flattened into a thin line as he said, “But for now, you need to know that your life is in danger.” 

Maggie almost burst out laughing at that, but Jeremiah was so dead serious, his tone so flat and earnest, that she couldn’t help but listen to his words. “My life is in danger every time I step outside my apartment door, but go on.”

Jeremiah shook his head. “This is different than the normal risks of the job. Lillian…” He frowned, the crinkle in his forehead so achingly familiar that Maggie had to fight to hear the words he was saying. “Lillian has standing orders for her people to kill you should the opportunity arise.”

It wasn’t a shock; after the way Lillian had threatened to declare war on everything Alex held dear if she tried to stop the Exodus ship from launching, Maggie had no doubt that she’d be high on the list of revenge kills. Still, she couldn’t help but push, hoping that maybe along the way, Jeremiah would let something useful slip.

“Is she that scared I’m going to figure out where Alex is and rescue her?” Maggie asked. “Or is she just that paranoid?”

Jeremiah laughed at that, though the mirth never quite reached his eyes. “Neither. In fact, she’s amused that you haven’t figured out where Alex is yet, when it’s right under your noses.” 

Maggie’s instincts went on high alert over that, but before she could pursue the point, Jeremiah said, “Lillian wants you dead to mess with Alex’s head. Imagine the words, ’Hero cop found dead, story at 11,’ on a feedback loop. That’s her goal.” There was something almost fatherly in his gaze, in his quiet words, as he added, “She can fake it, but she’d rather it be the real thing. So watch your back.”

Maggie thought about what J’onn had told her about the techniques they anticipated Lillian was using to try to brainwash Alex into working for Cadmus. Maggie’s own death would be nothing more than another weapon in Lillian’s psychological warfare, another sucker punch intended to make Alex give up hope. It made sense; Lillian had been cruel enough to murder three men right in front of her for far less rational reasons, and Maggie had no doubt she’d done so countless other times. 

So by that logic, Kara was a target too. And so was…

“Eliza?” she asked softly, her mind racing at the possibilities. 

Jeremiah shook his head. “Lillian understands if she so much as touches Lizzie I’ll stop doing her bidding. So long as she needs me, that’s my ace in the hole.” He crossed his arms in front of him, narrowing his eyes. “But you? You’re fair game.”

This was the moment, Maggie knew, when she should reach for her cuffs and slam Jeremiah against the wall and drag him back to the DEO for questioning. No matter that Alex’s dad had a good foot on her and was probably twice her weight; it irked her not to try. Instead she eased her hands open, making her body language as neutral as possible, and quietly said, “Come in with me.”

Jeremiah let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “And spend the rest of my life in a glass bubble? No thank you.”

“I mean it.” Maggie dared take a small step forward, modulating her voice into the low, deliberate tone she used whenever she had to talk a suspect down. “Tell J’onn what you’ve told me, give us her location, and in exchange, maybe we can —“ 

“No!” Jeremiah snarled, and suddenly Maggie was the one being slammed against the wall, his arm, riddled with Cadmus implants, as firm and immovable as a steel bar across her chest. She clawed at his forearm, but he just leaned in harder, a dangerous fury in his eyes. “I won’t go in! What I’m doing is too important, more important even than…” He faltered, and Maggie saw her opening.

“Than Alex?” Maggie asked, her ribs screaming like they were being cracked in half by his weight. Still, she pressed into that moment of vulnerability, fighting to stay sharp in spite of the pain. “You claim that all those years with Cadmus were about protecting her, so let me point this out to you, _Dad.”_ She spat the last word out, all her contempt for him, for her own father, for every parent who claimed love as the reason for their own selfish actions boiling out of her. “I’m a good cop. I don’t bash prisoners and I don’t threaten people. So please understand me when I say that if I find out that you let Alex spend even one more minute in agony than she needed to and you did nothing, I will stick a shiv in your kidneys and eat popcorn while you bleed.”

Jeremiah’s face clenched, and for an instant, Maggie was sure his forearm was going to slide up to her throat, that he was going to jam it in hard until her windpipe snapped and she drowned in her own blood. Then he eased back, and Maggie saw what looked like a tear gleaming in his eye.

“I’m just…I’m trying to do what’s right,” he said. 

And then he ran.

Maggie lurched forward, a massive cocktail of adrenaline and pain blasting through her veins, and tried hard not to throw up. She heard the door burst open, and an instant later M’gann was outside, her eyes scanning the alley for potential threats. 

“Do you want me to go after him?” she asked, placing a hand on Maggie’s shoulder. Before Maggie could respond, they heard an explosion from the mouth of the alley, followed by a blast wave that nearly knocked them both flat.

“What the hell was that?” Maggie asked, fighting to keep from dropping to her knees in the muck on the alley floor.

“Transmat portal is my guess.” M’gann crouched in front of her, making sure she was steady before letting go. Then she turned, surveying the scattered garbage and debris now clogging the alley entrance. “I’d say a portable one.”

“A bad guy with his own escape pod. That’s just what we need.” Maggie focused on Alex’s ring, sliding her thumb back and forth along its surface while she tried to clear the cobwebs from her head. At last she stood up, testing her aching chest and ribs with a slow, careful breath. “Well, that could have gone better.”

“The thoughts I got off of him were intermittent and disjointed,” M’gann said, and Maggie sensed that she was troubled — rattled, even— by the encounter. “It’s as if he has a shield in place, but it’s only working some of the time.”

“Alex said that J’onn couldn’t read Jeremiah before he betrayed the DEO,” Maggie said, trying to recall everything Alex had told her about the incident. “It’s possible that whatever they’re using to hide his thoughts is breaking down.”

“That could explain the erratic patterns I was getting,” M’gann agreed. “I also think it’s possible that the filter may have damaged his mind.” 

“Or he was already unstable, and the filter has simply been covering it up.” Maggie tried not to think about either possibility or what it might mean for Alex. Instead, she focused on the clues he had dropped, meager though they were. “He said something about Alex being right under our noses. Did you get anything from him that might tie into that?”

M’gann nodded and closed her eyes, focusing intently for a moment. At last she said, “There were images of a mansion…square, white stone, in the French Baroque style.”

“Like Versailles?” Maggie asked, and M’gann gave a quick, affirming nod. “Of course Lillian would be hiding in a place like that. She already thinks she’s a queen.”

M’gann smiled at that, but it was tentative, the humor never reaching her eyes. Maggie just looked at her for a moment, a silent understanding passing between them. 

“Say it,” she said, though a part of her feared the answer might knock her to her knees completely.

“The conditions Alex is being kept in…” Maggie knew that the body she saw in front of her was just a shape-shifting disguise, but even so, she could have sworn that M’gann went pale at the images playing through her mind. “It’s not good, Maggie.”

Maggie clenched her hand so hard that the rings dug into her skin. She counted down from ten, allowing herself that long, and no longer, to feel the fear bubbling up inside her chest. _Jeremiah is the key,_ she told herself. _He will lead me to her. I just need time._

“We’ve got enough to narrow the search,” she said, avoiding M’gann’s eyes, for she knew if she let herself feel the compassion in them she would come apart. She took another breath, feeling an ache in her ribs that mean she needed to spend some time with an ice pack soon, and said, “As for Jeremiah, now that he’s made contact he won’t be able to stay away.”

“Because he cares about Alex?” M’gann asked, but Maggie just shook her head.

“Because he wants to be the hero in this story,” Maggie explained, and saw M’gann’s face tighten as if she’d bitten into something sour at the words. “And he’s the sort who needs everyone to know just how epic his sacrifices are.” 

“I’ve known a lot of terrible people in my time,” M’gann said, and for an instant, Maggie saw the face of someone who had witnessed genocide and would live with that shame to the end of her days. “But using his own child’s pain to demonstrate his heroism? That sounds extreme, even for a man as unstable as he seems to be.”

“It’s sick,” Maggie said, dreading the thought of telling Eliza and Kara that Jeremiah was at least partly responsible for Alex’s disappearance. But within that horror there was a sliver of hope, because Jeremiah knew where Alex was — and now that Maggie had him on the line, it was just a matter of reeling him in.

“Jeremiah can play the hero all he wants,” Maggie said, her mouth curving in a grim smile. “He can play his little games and run me around in circles and even beat the hell out of me. And I don’t care — because sooner or later he’s going to slip up, and then I’ll be able to bring Alex home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for: Violence, imprisonment, vague discussion of brutal conditions, death threats.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Super, a Luthor, and a tiny detective have a very important meeting.
> 
> See end notes for content warnings.

_Maggie 5:57 pm: Can you get me a meeting with Lena?_

Kara walked onto the elevator and immediately backed against the wall, angling her body to prevent the other passengers from reading her reply. Her greatest concern, of course, was Eve Teschmacher, who was currently humming along to the Muzak version of “Can’t Fight This Feeling” with an enthusiasm that bordered on bliss.

_Sure,_ she typed. _When?_

_Soon as you can get me in,_ Maggie replied. _After that whole arresting her thing last year, I don’t want to just show up unexpectedly. Might be helpful to have you there too._

_Okay._ Kara chewed her lower lip, feeling a knot form in her stomach. _You don’t think she’s a suspect, right?_ she asked, hoping that for once, Lena’s connection to the Luthors would not be held against her.

_No, just the best lead I have on something I got out of the mystery texter._ Maggie typed, and stopped, and typed some more, finally sending, _I have a lot to tell you._

That sounded ominous, but before Kara could ask for any more hints, the elevator reached the bottom floor. She had a choice then: Keep texting with Maggie or set up the meeting with Lena. Of the two, calling Lena seemed the more pressing, or maybe it was just her sense that more bad news was on the way that made her crave the sound of Lena’s voice like she craved the taste of Dunkin Donuts after she kicked some bad guy’s ass. 

She dialed Lena’s number as she walked through the revolving doors and slid into the surge of early-evening pedestrian traffic. She felt relief — and maybe something that she wasn’t quite ready to put a name to — when Lena picked up on the third ring.

“Hey, Kara,” Lena said. She sounded distracted, but Kara had grown used to that when she called Lena at what was often, for her, only the middle of her workday. “I know we had dinner plans, but I’m a little swamped, and…”

“It’s okay,” Kara said, trying not to sound disappointed. But Lena must have heard the stress in her voice, because the energy on the other side of the phone suddenly shifted. 

“What’s wrong?” Lena asked, and just like that she was all there, her low, soothing voice a balm for that sharp, steady ache that had been present in Kara’s heart since the moment that Alex had disappeared. “Is it…is there word about Alex?”

“Not exactly,” Kara said, resisting the urge to elbow a group of slow-moving stockbrokers out of her way. She ducked into an alley and moved toward the back of it, adding, “Look, would it be okay if Maggie and I come over? She has some questions, and I…” She paused, feeling that ache in her heart expand, filling her whole body until all she could think about was how much she needed a hug — and how, in Alex’s absence, it felt like only Lena’s would do. “I would really like to see you for a few minutes. If I could.”

“Yes, of course. Come by as soon as you have time.” There was something soft and tender in Lena’s voice; a kindness that made Kara feel a little less alone. “I’ll be waiting.”

“Thanks. I’ll be there in a few.” Kara disconnected the call and sent Maggie a quick text to let her know that she should head to Lena’s office right away, then tucked away her phone and glasses. Seconds later she was above the rooftops, scanning the surrounding streets for any quick errands she could run while killing the five minutes it should reasonably take her to walk from CatCo to L-Corp. She managed to stop a car accident, fly a woman having a heart attack to the hospital, and rescue a stray dog from some bullying kids, but without Alex, her heroics left her feeling empty. She’d always known that because of her longer life span she would someday have to do this without her sister by her side. _But not yet,_ she thought as her feet touched solid ground. _Please, not yet._

She made herself Kara Danvers again, tucking her wind-blown hair back into a neat ponytail and straightening the pleats of her wrinkled gray trousers. When she walked into the L-Corp building, Jerry, the evening security guard, waved her toward the express elevator with barely a glance. She supposed it would have been faster to just fly to the fortieth floor, but she’d been stopping by so often lately that it made sense to be seen going into and out of the building. And besides, it amused Kara that L-Corp’s executive elevator moved twice as fast as Ms. Grant’s ever could — though she would never so much as breathe a word of that fact, not even to Lena.

When she stepped off the elevator, she found the outer office already darkened. Lena’s inner office, however, was lit from within, the desk and table lamps creating a glow akin to firelight. She crept toward its warmth, the sound of Lena’s voice reeling her in. 

“That sounds good, Sam,” Lena said, her phone tucked against her ear. She must have seen Kara out of the corner of her eye, for she turned, her face lighting up in a radiant smile. _Over there,_ she mouthed, indicating the couch, and then raised one finger to indicate that the person on the line was speaking again. “The numbers are fine, I’m not concerned. Now go home and spend some time with Ruby, and maybe take something for that headache.”

Lena hung up and swiveled in her chair, revealing one long, bare leg tucked beneath the other. Her spectacularly high heels were, as usual, abandoned in the corner, as so often happened the second Lena’s assistant was gone for the day. “It’s good to see you,” she said, with a smile that made Kara feel, just for an instant, as if everything was going to be all right.

“You too.” Kara sat down on the couch, though the path to it was all-but-blocked by the collection of binders, paperwork, and books scattered across and over the edge of Lena’s coffee table. “I know you said it was a busy day, but this looks even crazier than usual.” 

“Big project brewing. Something super-secret that will, of course, revolutionize the world.” Lena padded across the room sat down next to Kara, tugging down the skirt of her short-sleeved, emerald green dress, though not quite far enough to hide those smooth, pale thighs from view. She caught at Kara’s hand, threading their fingers together. “You okay?”

“Tired,” Kara admitted. She felt the urge to squeeze Lena’s fingers, but held back, afraid to put too much pressure on those delicate bones. She focused, instead, on the thump of Lena’s heartbeat, the sigh of her breath, letting the reassuring sound of both soothe and settle her until she felt ready to speak. “Listen, I think Maggie wants to talk to you about a lead on Alex’s location.” 

“Something related to my mother, I assume?” Lena dropped her eyes, her long lashes hiding the disappointment in her family that always lingered at the base of her consciousness like low frequency hum. “I know I’ve said this before, but I’m so sorry that my mother is doing these things. If I knew how to stop it…”

“It’s okay.” Kara caught at Lena’s chin and drew her gaze upward, waiting a breath, then another, until at last Lena looked at her. There was self-blame in those green eyes, and Kara felt the sudden urge to kiss it away. She held back from the impulse, quietly saying, “You’re not responsible for what your mother does, any more than…”

“Than any of us are for the stupid decisions our parents make,” said a voice from the doorway. 

Kara drew back, her fingers disentangling from Lena’s so fast that she felt a sharp tug, deep in her stomach, at the abrupt loss of contact. She turned to look at Maggie, who was standing with one shoulder braced against the door frame, her face tensed in what might have been pain. But there was an undercurrent of excitement beneath the surface: Kara could see it in the flush of her cheeks and the slight increase in her usual heart rate. Something big had happened with those texts. Something that might change everything.

She was desperate to ask for the full story, but for now, but she needed to maintain certain illusions. So she waited, instead, for Lena to rise, and walk across the office, and offer Maggie her hand. “It’s good to see you again.”

“You too.” Maggie nodded at Kara, her eyes indicating that a private conversation was on the schedule for later, and then sat down in the chair opposite the coffee table, waiting with her hands folded tightly in her lap while Lena retrieved a pitcher of water from a side table and poured three glasses. 

At last Lena settled back onto the couch, composing herself into the straight-backed, almost regal position she used in business meetings. She crossed one leg over the other, clasping her hands over her knee, and arched one perfectly pedicured foot upward, as if to reclaim the height lost by the absence of her Jimmy Choo’s. “Kara tells me you have some questions related to Alex’s kidnapping.”

Maggie blinked once, then turned toward Kara, something hardening in her gaze. “You told her?”

Kara felt a flush run through her as she realized that somewhere in all the chaos, she had forgotten to warn Lena that already knowing about Alex’s capture would draw scrutiny. She shrugged, gulped in a breath, and stuttered, “I…well...you see…”

“That’s on me,” Lena said, swooping in with all the confidence of a woman who had saved many a multi-million dollar deal from disaster. “Kara came to see me a few nights after it happened, and I could tell she was very upset. And I just…” She glanced over at Kara, her sympathetic smile the lifeline that Kara needed. “I just kept pushing until she told me what happened.”

“She did,” Kara said with a soft laugh, and saw Lena’s mouth quirk in a half-smile. “She really did.”

Maggie’s eyes flitted from Lena to Kara, her head tilting to one side, and Kara swallowed hard, trying to hide the embarrassment she felt at the suspicious look on Maggie’s face. Or was that something else causing her cheeks to flush and her heart to race? 

She didn’t have time to decide before Maggie sat back and nodded, her shoulders relaxing a fraction of an inch. “If Kara trusts you, then that’s good enough for me. Besides, it saves me having to explain what’s going on when I ask what I’m about to ask.” 

Lena jolted at Maggie’s words like they had shaken her down to her marrow, and Kara saw what might have been pride in her eyes, as well as a simple, almost childlike wonder. It made Kara’s heart swell to see Lena shine at such simple acceptance from another person, but particularly from Maggie, whose reputation was built on honor and fair dealing. It also made Kara want to burn down the world and anyone who had ever made Lena feel like she was nothing but her last name.

Then Kara’s brain kicked in, Maggie’s words finally penetrating the swirl of emotions churning inside her head. “You met with your source?” 

Maggie nodded, her jaw tightening, as if that one sharp, hard twitch of her cheek muscle could keep her emotions from spilling out in every direction. She’d done the same thing when, after hours of searching, Kara had gone to deliver the news on the day of Alex’s capture. She’d found Maggie at a crime scene outside a bodega, and Kara would always remember how the late afternoon sun had framed her sister-in-law to be from behind, her dark hair glowing red. Maggie had caught sight of Kara in her reporter’s clothes and smiled, asking, “Hey, Kid. You covering this one?”

“Maggie,” Kara had said, feeling, in the same instant, as if she needed to both vomit and cry. “There’s been…I mean…Alex is…”

Her voice had faltered on the words, and for an instant Maggie had gone still, the blood draining from her face. “Is she…”

“No, not that,” Kara said, and saw Maggie sway a little, as if her knees had nearly given out at the thought that Alex might be dead. But there was no way to soften what came next, and so Kara forced herself to say the words, hard as they might be. “Cadmus has her.”

Maggie had let out a quick, sharp breath, as if every bit of air in her lungs was rushing out at once. Then her face had hardened and seemed to hollow out, her jaw setting in a tight line. She ducked beneath the crime scene tape and walked straight to her car, not uttering another word as she started the engine and sped off toward the DEO, leaving two thick black tire marks in her wake. 

It had taken Kara a moment to get moving; the bleak, hollow look in Maggie’s eyes had been too painful — and too close to reflecting what she herself was feeling — to do much more than stand there at first. Eventually she took to the sky, discreetly trailing behind Maggie’s car as it weaved its way through traffic with a fierce determination that verged on recklessness. It had seemed only right to watch over Maggie, if only to protect her from herself. And besides, it’s what Alex would have wanted.

She looked over at Maggie now, watching her fight to maintain the neutral facade that was her game face when questioning a witness or suspect, and said, “Maggie began receiving texts from someone claiming to have information about Alex this morning.”

“And I met with him this afternoon.” There was something beyond anger in Maggie’s voice; something deep, and dark, and more than a little terrifying. “He mentioned something about a house in the vicinity of National City. We have reason to believe it’s a large mansion of some sort, possibly one in the French Baroque style.”

Lena’s lips twisted in distaste. “There’s no shortage of houses like that in the Hills. I’ve been to awful parties at probably five of them just in the last year.” 

“Great. But what we’re looking for…” Maggie glanced over at Kara, and Kara sensed that she was trying to get a read on how to make the big reveal without putting Lena on the defensive. “Kara?”

Kara reached over and touched the back of Lena’s hand, her fingers grazing over the knuckles before coming to rest lightly against Lena’s wrist. “We need to know if your mother might own a house like that, or at least have access to it.”

“Oh,” Lena said, her eyes widening in surprise. And then, more quietly: “Oh.”

They sat in silence for a moment, giving Lena time to absorb the news, to reorder her world around these facts as they were being presented to her. Kara imagined what it must be like, to live every day with the knowledge that somewhere within the vast holdings of the company that bore Lena’s name, her mother was hatching schemes that would harm thousands, even millions of people. Or in this instance, one single, irreplaceable person.

_Oh, Alex._

Maggie cleared her throat and clenched her fists, then opened them in a deliberate motion, her fingers splaying as she smoothed her hands down her black jeans until they rested just above her knees. “I don’t know how much Kara has told you about why we think your mother captured Alex, but it’s our feeling she would keep her close. So any information you might have — personal recollections, property records, anything — might be the detail we need to crack this case wide open.” 

“Of course. I’ll start a search of the archives immediately.” Lena glanced over at Kara, and Kara couldn’t help but notice the faint tremor in her bottom lip, the fragile, skittering panic sliding just beneath the surface as Lena accepted that her mother was, once again, wreaking havoc with no care for the consequences. “I feel the need to apologize again for the pain that you both are being put through. And Alex…” She faltered, her eyes filling with tears. “What my mother is doing...”

“Is not your fault,” Kara insisted, clasping Lena’s hand. “Help us find Alex. That’s all we ask of you.”

Lena nodded once, her jaw tensing as she fought back tears, and Kara saw that wounded, broken part of Lena, that piece of her that would never, ever heal. Then she straightened her spine and nodded a second time, and once again she was Lena Luthor, the determined, powerful CEO who could negotiate a Fortune 500 merger while sipping a mimosa and take apart a creep like Morgan Edge with nothing but her wit and a wicked smile. “Whatever I can find, I promise. I’ll start right away.”

Maggie nodded, and for an instant her shoulders sagged, as if the weight of this one small burden being lifted had only made the rest of what she was carrying press down more firmly. She got to her feet, her careful movements leading Kara to wonder just what might have happened — and what kind of damage it may have done — when she met with her source. Yet when Kara went to tip down her glasses, Maggie rolled her eyes, fending her off with one knowing glance. To Lena, she said, “If you could avoid alerting your staff as to what you’re looking for…”

“I was planning on doing the search personally,” Lena interrupted, and then glanced at Kara, a rueful smile passing over her lips. “My mother is fond of planting spies here at L-Corp. I’ll make sure they don’t find out what we’re up to.”

“Thank you.” Maggie sidestepped the coffee table, reaching down to shake Lena’s hand in goodbye. “I’m grateful for the help.” 

“Maggie, after all this time…” Lena reached for Maggie’s hand, but she didn’t shake it; instead, she rose and clasped it between her palms in a way Kara had seen her do countless times at charity events or children’s hospital visits or even just when she was talking to a stranger on the street. “I’d like to think that we’ve become friends. And I make it a practice to be there for my friends.”

Maggie looked down at their intertwined hands, then back at Lena, murmuring a quiet, almost shy, “Thank you.” They looked at each other for another beat, and Kara suddenly realized how alike they were; both so reserved, yet with so much feeling underneath. Then Maggie drew back, tucking her hands in the front pockets of her jeans, and looked over at Kara. “Stop by the apartment for dinner in a half-hour or so?”

The invitation made it clear that Maggie needed to talk about whatever else had been said during her conversation with her source. Kara nodded in agreement, though she wasn’t quite sure she was ready for what lay behind the grim look in Maggie’s eyes. She watched in silence as Maggie and Lena said their last goodbyes and Lena escorted Maggie to the door. A moment later the elevator dinged, and then it was only her, and Lena, and all the words they had left unspoken dancing in the air. 

“I guess I have new dinner plans.” Kara got to her feet and saw Lena blink once, one corner of her mouth curving downward. 

“Like I said, I have to work.” It was Lena’s turn to sound disappointed, though she papered it over with her next overly cheerful words. “Besides, you and Maggie need time together. Family is important.”

“It is,” Kara said, and took Lena’s hand.

Lena just looked at her, her eyes wide and so very beautiful, and for an instant, Kara imagined what her friend might have looked like in the sort of long, flowing gown that was Krypton’s traditional garb. Emerald green would have been Lena’s color, of course, its rich hue a stunning contrast to both her dark hair and fair complexion. Kara could almost see her standing on a high platform as she looked out at a burnt red sunset, the wind catching at tendrils of her hair. And she was saying something, something that Kara very much wanted to hear, and — 

“Kara?”

Kara blinked, pulling herself back to Earth, and back to the real Lena, the one who was standing before her with worry in her gaze. And back, also, to the crushing reality of Alex gone without a trace.

_This is no time for daydreams,_ she thought, steeling herself against the feelings that seemed to surge, without warning, every time she was within Lena’s orbit.

“I’m fine,” Kara said, though her skin felt warm, as if the heat of a thousand sun lamps were suddenly focused on her at once. “I should —“ She gestured toward the door. “Maggie and I have to talk about some things. But...” She hesitated, a part of her needing this weakness, even as she fought against it. “If I stop by later, will you still be here?”

Lena nodded, her mouth curving in a gentle smile. “I will.” 

“Okay.“ Kara realized then that she had never actually gotten her hug, and her arms ached in protest. Yet she felt afraid to reach for it, because the thought of letting go seemed more than she could bear. Instead, she took one step toward the door, then another, her fingers still intertwined with Lena’s. “Maybe I’ll bring food.” 

“Caterpillar roll,” Lena said, biting one corner of her mouth. “And some of those little dumplings.”

“You love those little dumplings.” Kara took another step, and then there was no choice but to let go of Lena’s hand. “I’ll see you then.”

“I’ll see you then,” Lena repeated. She returned to her desk, and in an instant she was back in work mode, her eyes not even so much as flickering in Kara’s direction as she walked through the door. Yet when Kara reached the elevator, she turned and, on impulse, drew her glasses down.

Her unfettered vision seemed to swarm forward, passing through paint and drywall, through two by fours and wiring, and then out and into the space beyond. And as she took in what was happening on the other side of the wall, she grinned, the pain in her heart lightening, just for an instant. Because Lena wasn’t working anymore; instead, she was staring in the direction of the elevator with one hand pressed to her chest and a dreamy look on her face. It made Kara want to rush back in there and sweep Lena into her arms and say things that she shouldn’t be saying, not now, when Alex was missing and the world was on the verge of coming apart. 

Yet she couldn’t help but grasp the moment of respite, holding on to as Alex, of all people, would urge her to do. And Kara could think of no better respite — no safer place, in this world or any other — than knowing that Lena was looking at her too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: Very sweet, extremely innocent Supercorp. Yes, I said it.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maggie and Kara update Eliza on recent developments in the case.
> 
> Please see notes for warnings.

“We have to tell Eliza,” Kara said. 

Maggie stirred her fork through the last bit of salad on her plate and took one final bite. She’d managed to eat most of it; the lasagna, not so much. Her lunch had consisted of nothing but some stale pretzels and a few sips of beer, yet when it came time to tell Kara about Jeremiah, her appetite had disappeared. The thought of telling Eliza — well, that was enough to turn her stomach inside out. 

“Are you sure she’s up to it?” Maggie asked, reaching for her water glass. She wanted Scotch; God, she wanted Scotch, if only to shut down her brain long enough to process the day. But she needed to keep her mind clear, especially if she was about to tell her almost mother-in-law that her treasonous husband might be slow-walking their daughter’s release from Hell.

“I don’t think we can hide it from her,” Kara said, casting a brief, longing glance at Maggie’s half-eaten lasagna. “Besides, if anyone would have some insight into why Jeremiah is doing this, it would be Eliza.”

“You’re right.” Maggie pushed her plate in Kara’s direction and watched, bemused, as Kara wolfed down the leftover food in three quick bites. “Sooner or later we have to interview her, and it might as well be now. Besides, there’s not much else we can do until Lena gets back to us on those property records.”

“Hopefully she can find something that narrows the search.” Kara piled Maggie’s plate atop her own and headed toward the sink, waving off Maggie’s offer of help. “I know it’s your apartment, but I can get this done way faster than you.” 

She was true to her word, for when Maggie emerged from the bathroom a few minutes later, the dishes were already washed and stacked in the dish rack. Kara, now in her Supergirl guise, was standing before the fireplace, the Danvers family photo that had been taken just days before Jeremiah had been revealed as a Cadmus spy clutched in her hands. Maggie had taken the picture, and she couldn’t help but remember how both Alex and Eliza had protested that she should be in it too, and then later dragged her into a group shot taken by J’onn. It had been her first inkling that in meeting Alex, she might have found not just a girlfriend, but a family.

A completely fucked up family, as most were. But still.

“This is going to be hard for Eliza,” Kara said, replacing the picture on the mantel.

“It will.” Maggie tried not to look at the engagement picture to its right, which had been added to their collection of photographs only a month before. James had insisted they have a photo shoot for their formal announcement, though Alex had reacted to the whole notion as if she were being dragged in front of a firing squad. Yet when they were finally in front of the camera, she’d wrapped Maggie in her arms from behind, drawing Maggie into the curve of her shoulder with a look of pure contentment on her face. Maggie remembered how safe she’d felt, how her hand had lifted to catch at Alex’s elbow, not to display her ring, but because the instinct to be connected with Alex had been so strong that she couldn’t imagine it anywhere else. 

“I can’t believe this gets to be ours now,” Maggie had murmured between shots, her head tilting to one side so she could be heard over the Coldplay blaring from the speakers on either side of James’s studio. 

“It all gets to be ours,” Alex had replied, and then drew Maggie in closer, humming along as the first, joyful beats of “A Sky Full of Stars” echoed through the studio. “Anything we can dream, Babe.” 

Now, Maggie ripped her gaze away from the photo, though the image was still seared on her retina, the sense memory of Alex holding her close as vivid as if it had happened only an instant before. She bit the inside of her lip, hoping the pain would bring her back into focus, and said, “We should go.”

She rode her bike to the loft, declining Kara’s offer to fly her over with the excuse that she would likely need to head to the DEO afterward. In truth, she needed the twenty-block ride, both to clear her head and to prepare the questions that would need to be asked. As Kara had said, it would be tough, but Maggie knew Eliza well enough by now to understand that she wouldn’t want Maggie to shy away from anything that might lead them to Alex. Eliza was as brave as her daughters; braver, maybe, than any of them. 

Maggie parked her bike outside Kara's building and climbed the three flights to the loft, her helmet tucked under her arm. The door opened while she was still walking down the hallway, and Maggie entered, closing it behind her. Kara glanced over her shoulder, murmuring a quiet, “Hey,” before turning her attention back to pouring steaming water from a kettle into three stoneware mugs arrayed across the kitchen table, each of which had a tea bag dangling from it. She had changed into sweatpants and a baggy gray sweater, the same clothes she so often wore when she and Alex were spending an evening binge-watching whatever show was their latest obsession. Her red-rimmed eyes made it clear that chilling in front of the TV was definitely not on the schedule tonight.

Maggie set her helmet aside and shucked off her jacket, looking over at Eliza, who was sitting on the couch in a borrowed pair of Kara’s sweatpants and a bulky blue cardigan. Her face was pinched and drawn, as if she was fighting hard to hold her emotions in check. She knew, Maggie realized; there was no way in hell she didn’t know.

“You told her,” Maggie said, trying to keep the accusation out of her tone. 

Kara simply nodded and walked over to the couch, offering the cherry red mug to Eliza. “Here you go.” 

“Thank you, Kara,” Eliza said, mustering the slightest of smiles. Then her eyes strayed to Maggie. “I hear it’s been a busy day.”

“That’s one word for it.” Maggie skirted the kitchen table and walked over the couch, crouching in front of Eliza. “I’m sorry.” 

“It’s all right, Sweetie.” Eliza lifted one hand to cup Maggie’s cheek, her blue eyes holding the same distant, almost vacant expression that Maggie had seen time and again when talking to the family members of a murder suspect. It was the betrayal that tore them in half; the realization that someone they loved had been carrying the capacity for evil within them all along. “I wish I could say that this came as a shock. But after everything that’s happened, he’s simply not the man I knew anymore.”

Maggie nodded, her smile tight, because after her father’s outburst at the bridal shower, she understood what it felt like to have the last illusions about a loved one stripped away, to see someone she had once revered as not just proud or intractable, but corrupt beyond saving. She imagined that Eliza was wondering where it had gone wrong; if there had been a moment, somewhere along the line, where Jeremiah might have been turned from this path, or if it was simply an inevitable consequence of who he was.

“I need to ask you some questions,” Maggie said, and saw Eliza nod once, the fringe of her lashes hiding her eyes from view. Maggie had seen that same gesture from Alex more times than she could count, and the eerie similarity — the same quirk of the mouth, the same tilt of the head — made her draw in a quick, startled breath. She clenched her fist, fighting to regain her equilibrium, and pushed to her feet, settling in the easy chair opposite the couch. 

Kara had been puttering in the kitchen this whole time, though Maggie suspected her real intent had been to give Maggie a private moment with Eliza. Now she walked over, one neon green and one turquoise blue mug in each hand, and offered the blue one to Maggie. “I told Eliza that it appears Jeremiah is working with Cadmus, and that he knows where Alex is but wouldn’t give you any details,” she said, settling on the couch. “But I didn’t get into why you thought that might be.”

“Beyond the obvious,” Eliza added, a hint of bitterness in her tone. She looked up at Maggie, something deeply practical in her gaze. “You think he’s putting Cadmus’s interests over Alex’s safety.”

Maggie took her time responding. This was the hard part — to lead Eliza to the most truthful response possible, without triggering the sort of defensiveness or resentment that would close her off to further questioning. Though it might be painful, simple and direct seemed the best way to go.

“I think we both know that Jeremiah wouldn’t put Alex at risk unless he thought there was something more at stake,” she said, leaning forward and threading her hands together in her lap. “Before he ran, he used the word ‘important’ and said he was trying to do what was right. So the question I have to ask is, what could he possibly think is more important than bringing Alex home?”

“I can’t imagine what that would be. Unless…” Eliza blinked once, a quiet, “Oh, no,” slipping from her lips. 

“Eliza?” Kara asked, turning to look at her foster mom. She fiddled with her glasses, her eyes wide, and Maggie saw a girl who was not yet ready for the way her foster family was about to be torn apart. “What is it?”

“Argo fever.” Eliza looked at Maggie with a hesitation that, Maggie saw, was rapidly turning to certainty. “I think this may be about Argo fever.”

“But that’s a Kryptonian virus,” Kara said, and Maggie heard confusion in her tone. She lifted one hand to her forehead, scratching at the pockmarked scar just above her left eyebrow. “How could it possibly be relevant?” 

“Because you were still recovering from it when you arrived on Earth.” Eliza looked over at Kara, a motherly tenderness in her tone. “I don’t know how much you remember. You were very confused those first few weeks.”

“I…” Kara stared down at the floor, her brow furrowing. “My mother said something about Argo fever when I was under the Black Mercy, but I thought that was a dream.”

“It was a dream constructed out of real memories,” Eliza said, and Maggie sensed a deeper conversation, one far beyond the quick summary that Alex had given, which consisted of, _So this one time, a giant plant thing attached itself to Kara and I had to go into her mind to drag her out._ “I know you actually had it just before you were sent to Earth, because Jeremiah and I detected traces of it in your blood samples when you first arrived.”

“But how did you…” Kara faltered, a sudden realization in her gaze. “Oh. Clark.”

Eliza nodded. “He gave us a sample and told us to add it to Jeremiah’s database of information about Kryptonians. Because you were older than Clark and had been exposed to more of Krypton’s common diseases, we needed to know if you might be carrying anything that could cross to the human population.”

“You were worried your family might be exposed to something your immune systems couldn’t handle,” Maggie said, and saw Eliza nod in response.

“Clark, being newborn, was essentially a clean slate when he came here, but by the age of twelve, Kara had been exposed to a variety of different pathogens. Something as simple as a strain of the common cold could be deadly to humans.” She looked over at Kara, an apology in her gaze, and added, “Alex sharing a room with you put her on the front line. We had to be careful.”

Kara nodded, something stricken in her gaze. She blinked once, then a second time, scratching at the mark above her eyebrow once again. “Argo fever was terrible. Even with all our technology, we weren’t able to eradicate it. I understand why you must have been scared.” 

Eliza smiled and took Kara’s hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “Once Jeremiah identified it as the virus most likely to jump from Kryptonian to human, he devoted all his energy to working on a vaccine.” She looked over at Maggie, her tone resigned, and said, “And then one night when I was out of the house at a lecture, he inoculated Alex.”

Eliza’s words didn’t surprise Maggie; her experience of Jeremiah was that he was the sort of person who got off on taking dangerous risks, and had been even before Cadmus broke his mind. Kara, however, still had enough illusions left to be horrified at the revelation. “Was that when Alex got so sick, right before our first Christmas?”

Eliza nodded. “He gave Alex a dose of the vaccine he’d developed, and the side effects almost put her in the hospital. I was furious at the time because I didn’t think it was worth the gamble, but Jeremiah was convinced if he waited any longer that Alex would be at greater risk.” She shook her head, and Maggie heard a lifetime’s worth of love in her wistful words. “He was a stubborn man, even then.” 

Maggie understood then, in one swift flash, that while Alex’s tenacity and strength of will came from Eliza, her wild, impulsive streak was entirely Jeremiah’s. The realization must have been visible on her face, for Eliza nodded and flashed a knowing smile, the sort that, Maggie realized, they had begun to share more and more often. Then Eliza got to her feet and walked to one of the towering bay windows that ran the length of Kara’s loft, her gaze focused on the street outside. 

“Eventually we determined that Argo fever was not a threat to the human population, and it was the strain of the flu that Jeremiah had used to engineer the prototype that made Alex ill. So we abandoned developing a vaccine.” Eliza pressed one hand to the glass, her voice tangled in the distance of long-ago memory, and added, “But when I was analyzing the Medusa virus to try and find a cure for J’onn, I saw elements of the design Jeremiah had used for the Argo fever vaccine in its structure.”

Maggie glanced over at Kara, who was frowning, her brow crinkling as it did when she was trying to puzzle out a mystery. “You’re saying Cadmus used Jeremiah’s Argo fever vaccine in its development of Medusa?”

Maggie shook her head and tried, as best she could, to keep her words gentle. “She’s saying Jeremiah engineered the Medusa virus for Cadmus.”

“Oh.” Kara clasped her hands in front of her, a look of bitter disappointment flashing across her face. She pushed to her feet, walking over to the window, and put a hand on Eliza’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Eliza.”

Eliza caught at Kara’s hand, tangling their fingers together. “I suppose it shouldn’t shock me, knowing what I know now.” She gave Kara a wistful smile, adding, “But it still does.” 

Eliza turned to look at Maggie, and for the first time, Maggie saw Eliza’s preternatural youthfulness stripped away, the full weight of her 55 years laying on her like a yoke. “I told J’onn about my suspicions after Jeremiah betrayed the DEO. He needed to know what Jeremiah was capable of, as well as what risks might be associated with him working for Cadmus. I had hoped after he broke with Lillian to help Alex stop that spaceship from launching that he might have turned over a new leaf, but Lillian must have found a way to lure him back in.” She paused and looked out the window once again, quietly adding, “Jeremiah was always easily swayed by a persuasive argument.”

Maggie let the words hang for a moment, allowing Eliza time to grieve the loss of the husband she had believed in for all these years. She wondered what it would be like to have Alex turn into someone she didn’t recognize, someone who rejected the values that were the foundation of their relationship. To feel the love, still, in spite of all the pain. 

She had a feeling it would break her in half. And yet somehow, Eliza was still standing. 

Maggie rubbed her hands over her arms, a sudden chill pervading her body. She resisted the urge to grab a blanket off the couch and wrap it around her shoulders, forcing herself to hold still until Eliza nodded at her to continue.

“If Argo fever isn’t harmful to humans and the Medusa virus only attacks aliens, then why would Lillian still be interested?” Maggie waited a beat before finding the missing link in the simplest of deductions. “He’s created some sort of hybrid with a human virus, hasn’t he.”

“Clever girl.” Eliza gave her a fleeting smile, a tiny bit of motherly approval that warmed Maggie’s heart. Then the stoic determination that reminded Maggie so much of Alex settled over Eliza’s features, her voice falling into a flat, clinical rhythm. “In the course of his research on Argo fever, Jeremiah determined that with a few enhancements from an Earth-based virus, it could easily be converted into a bioweapon against humans. My guess is he used his work on the Medusa virus as a springboard to creating a version of Argo fever that would jump the genetic barrier.”

At first, Kara gaped in horror. Then, it was as if a switch had flipped, her eyes hardening behind her glasses until Maggie saw nothing but Kara Zor-El in her gaze. “So he’s combined Argo fever with something lethal to humans. But what?”

“Back when we were theorizing about it, he said a strain of Ebola made the most sense, though I posited that any variation of the flu would do.” Eliza crossed her arms and leaned against the window, huddling under her sweater as if sickened by the memory. “To make any of this possible, he would need access to a large supply of the Argo fever virus in its raw genetic form.”

_Blood,_ Maggie thought, the pieces settling into place. She flinched away from the pain in Eliza’s eyes, turning her attention instead to Kara. 

“He needs Alex’s blood,” she said, her voice flat, cold, her focus on containing the anger, the fear, because if she gave in to either she was likely to shatter, and she simply didn’t have the time. “That’s why Lillian came after her now. What’s in her blood.”

“I think yes,” Eliza said, though her words were gentle, as if she had snapped back, suddenly, from a woman grieving the love of her life to a mother trying, in some small way, to soften an inevitable pain. “If Lillian is having Jeremiah bioengineer a weapon against humans, then Alex, as the only human being with the Argo fever antibodies in her bloodstream, would be his best resource for gathering the material he needs.”

“To make a weapon that would kill millions of people,” Kara said, and for a split second, Maggie swore she saw a flash of red in Kara’s eyes.

Eliza nodded. “If that’s what they’re intending to do.”

Maggie thought back on Jeremiah’s words, the frantic, desperate demeanor he displayed, as if he was trying, as hard as he could, to convince her of his nobility. “Hold on. Why would he say he was trying to do the right thing if he’s working on a bioweapon that could wipe out half the planet?”

“Because like any good bioengineer, he’s also trying to develop a vaccine.” Eliza walked over to the couch and sat down, pulling a throw pillow against her stomach. She looked over at Maggie, her jaw tight, and added, “That’s why he’s delaying getting her out. Because he’s got a disease that works, but no cure.”

“The hell with the cure,” Maggie snarled, and saw Eliza smile, as if approving this sudden flash of temper. “He can engineer it to his heart’s content from the DEO and he knows it. He just wants to justify his own behavior, and he can’t do that unless he fixes the problem he created in the first place.”

“I’m afraid that may be true.” Eliza clasped her hands in front of her, quietly saying, “If I had known what Cadmus would turn him into…”

She left the thought unfinished, turning instead to Kara, who was still standing by the window. “Sweetheart, please,” Eliza said, an absolution in her tone. “You can’t blame yourself.”

“I don’t.” Kara returned to the couch and sat down next to Eliza, pulling her into a hug. “We’re going to bring Alex home and get this virus sorted out once and for all so that it never affects her or anyone else ever again.” 

She drew back from the hug and looked over at Maggie, a searing intensity in her eyes. “Right?”

“We’re bringing her back,” Maggie said, a rough determination in her voice. “No matter what the cost.”

She wondered later if she would have have said those words so cavalierly had she understood what the price would be. But deep down, she knew that for Alex, she would give anything.

Even if that anything turned out to be her last breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No canon lesbians will die in the making of this fic.
> 
> Trigger warnings for: Asshole fathers.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Time to check in with Alex. 
> 
> This chapter is tough, so please see notes for trigger warnings if you are at all sensitive to such things. (I, of course, would prefer you didn't spoil yourselves, but do as is best for you.)

Alex wonders how long it’s been since Lillian left her.

It feels like hours, but the last — days, weeks, months? — have given her a crash course in how sensory deprivation can play with her sense of time. She has learned to measure it by breaths, by heartbeats, by the burning of her thirst or the ache in her shoulders. By that calculation, it’s been two hours, maybe three, since she was forced her to her knees, her arms chained over her head. That means it won’t be long before the trembling in her overtaxed muscles becomes so pronounced that she’ll have no choice but to sag forward, letting her shoulders take the strain that her abs and thighs can no longer bear. She knows that’s when the real pain will begin; when the wounds on her back will tear, the blood trickling down her back become a life-threatening flood. Terror fills her at the thought, and she flexes her wrists, desperate to find some give. 

But there is none. There never is.

She feels her breathing shallow as her body searches for an escape route. Unconsciousness beckons, but she fights against it, knowing it will only lead to more pain on the other side — to death even, if the strain on her chest muscles becomes so pronounced that her lungs can no longer function properly. Bad enough she once nearly drowned in water; the last thing she wants to do is drown in air.

And so her mind takes over, pulling her toward the only remaining option, the only thing that she has left to keep her sane and alive for however long she must endure. It goes against her training; J’onn has taught her to stay present, to gather whatever information she can to improve her odds of survival or facilitate an escape. She knows he would tell her to focus, to breathe deep and stay calm and methodically work through her options. To use what she has until something better comes along.

But maybe, she thinks, maybe just this once he would cut her some slack.

Her mind flashes through images, sounds, the touch of a hand against her cheek, the scent of salt on water. She lets it take her, lets it find something to cling to. Forward or back — it doesn’t matter, so long as it’s not here.

And then an image comes to mind, and _Okay, forward,_ she thinks. _Forward it is…._

“Hey,” she hears, the voice soft, and raspy with exhaustion.

Alex opens her eyes, dragging her weary body back from some much-needed sleep, and takes in the hospital room, its pale blue walls interspersed with paintings of children playing on a sandy beach and wooden cabinets that cleverly disguise the medical equipment hidden inside. The curtain on the window is half-open, and morning sunlight streams in, its shaft illuminating Maggie as she moves toward the bed, still in the same jeans and wrinkled black and red plaid shirt she’d been wearing when they arrived more than 24 hours ago. She seems ever-so-slightly off balance, her stride not quite steady as she navigates toward the bed.

“You’re drunk, Sawyer,” Alex teases, her voice tinged with envy. It has been a long time since she’s had a drop to drink — about ten months, give or take. Maggie had offered to stick it out with her, but there had been more than one night when Alex had poured the Scotch herself and handed it over, if only so she could live vicariously through the taste of it on her wife’s tongue. 

“I just had one,” Maggie insists, and then pauses, thinking it through. “Well, okay, two. But James brought Drambuie, and who I am I to turn that down?”

“Maybe sleep first before you celebrate any more,” Alex says, laughing, and shifts higher on the bed. Her muscles protest, and she lets out a hiss, wincing as everything from her shoulders to her knees shrieks in pain. 

Maggie rushes to her side, and suddenly it’s as if all trace of alcohol has been burned out of her system. “Babe, let me help you.”

“It’s okay,” Alex says, letting out a slow breath. She incrementally shifts her weight before settling into a new position, though her sore muscles insist that this one isn’t going to be much better than the one she’s just abandoned. “I’ll ask for some meds after they bring her in.” 

“J’onn and your mom just got back from grabbing breakfast,” Maggie says as she settles on the bed and tangles their hands together. She looks tired, her eyes deeply shadowed, but then, by Alex’s calculation, she’s been up for about 36 hours straight, having come home from an overnight shift only to have Alex go into labor just as she was crawling into bed. In spite of that, her eyes are sparkling, and her smile is broad and constant, and has been ever since the doctor first put their baby girl in her arms.

“Kara’s not here?” Alex asks. She’s been expecting her sister to burst through the door any minute with a giant teddy bear clutched in one hand and a couple dozen balloons in the other. And singing, most likely. Alex is just sure she’ll be singing.

“She had to leave, actually,” Maggie says, quickly forestalling the worry she sees in Alex’s eyes. “Nothing’s wrong. She just couldn’t deal with being able to hear you in pain, so she went looking for fires to put out and kittens to rescue. Eliza says she’s on her way back.” 

“I was screaming a lot,” Alex admits, and Maggie chokes out a laugh, for _a lot_ is an understatement after twenty hours of labor. Alex is fairly sure there’s paint missing from the walls of the birthing suite after all the creative ways she had found to express her discomfort. Even Maggie, who could swear like a sailor in three different languages, had been impressed — especially when Alex broke out the Kryptonian.

“I guess that’s what you get for getting yourself knocked up by some 19 year old,” Maggie teases, and Alex smacks her arm. “Ow!”

“He’s 23,” Alex insists, not for the first time. “Poor kid’s got to pay for grad school somehow, you know.”

Maggie just chuckles, deferring as always to Alex’s very thorough vetting of their chosen sperm donor. Alex had researched every aspect of the process, from the candidates’ genetic profiles to their ethnicity, searching for someone with the right combination of ancestry to match Maggie’s heritage. She supposed it didn’t really matter in the end — all either of them really wanted was a healthy child — and yet she would never forget the smile on Maggie’s face when she’d told her the reasons why she had chosen this candidate above all others. 

And yet the smile on Maggie’s face comes close as she sits here, holding Alex’s hands as she had through every minute of the delivery. It had been Maggie who had kept her going, Maggie who had endured the vise grip of Alex’s fingers, Maggie who had held her when her strength flagged and her resolve to deliver without painkillers had wavered. And it was Maggie who had talked her through those terrifying five minutes when the doctors had feared the cord was wrapped around their baby’s neck, when the panic had surged and Alex’s need to push had grown overwhelming, despite it being the worst possible thing she could do. Maggie had held Alex’s face between her hands, coaxing Alex to look into her eyes and listen, to relax when her every instinct was to fight.

“Babe, I know you want to push, but you need to help the doctors and just be still,” she had said, her gaze calm, and unwavering, and so full of love. 

“I have to,” Alex had panted. She thrashed as another bolt of agony surged outward, every nerve in her body firing as if a tripwire had been hit. “I can’t wait. I need it done.”

“And our baby girl needs you to give her a minute,” Maggie had soothed, her fingers rubbing the back of Alex’s neck in a way that, in more intimate circumstances, was guaranteed to make Alex melt. She stroked Alex’s cheek with the other hand, her eyes insistent. “You’re a badass, Danvers. You can do this. You can.”

And Alex had clung to that and held on, and a few minutes later her OB had given the all clear, and now here they were, waiting for their daughter to be brought in from the nursery. It feels like her heart is breaking in the best kind of way, and though the scientist in Alex knows that this feeling is more hormones than anything else, she can’t help but think that if there is a God out there, She’s smiling on them now. 

“I don’t know if I mentioned this, but her middle name is non-negotiable,” Alex says, brushing a lock of her wife’s messy, tangled hair behind her ear.

“You sure you want to saddle her with that?” Maggie asks, rolling her eyes. Yet beneath the self-deprecation, Alex sees a hint of insecurity. 

“Yes, I do,” Alex insists, setting her face, as best she can, into the sort of determined gaze that Maggie knows better than to fight. “Besides, if she’s getting my last name, then it’s only fair she has some part of you.”

“Fair to everyone but her,” Maggie says, letting out a low giggle. She’s getting punchy now, and Alex realizes she’s going to need to insist that Maggie go home and take a shower and a nap, even if it means she has to call on her sister’s super-strength for assistance. Maybe, she thinks, she should just ask James to lure Maggie back to the house with more Drambuie.

Just then the door creaks and they both look up, Maggie’s smile widening until it all but splits her face when a woman with high cheekbones and coppery-brown skin wheels in a bassinet. Alex catches a glimpse of a pink blanket and a bit of fine, downy black hair as the nurse — whose name is Constance, and who has been with them the entire delivery — cradles the baby against her chest. The baby lets out a gurgle, and Alex hears Maggie exhale loudly, a low, wet breath, as if her heart is breaking in two. She turns, lifting a hand to Maggie’s cheek and drawing their foreheads together in a last, shared moment of wonder before Constance leans down and carefully guides the baby into her arms. 

“Here she is,” Constance says, and Alex looks up at her and nods, barely aware that there are tears streaming from her eyes. 

Maggie does though, and she brushes them away from Alex’s cheeks. She does the same with her own and then nestles into Alex’s side, wrapping one arm around her shoulders while, with the other, she reaches out and presses a reverent hand to the crown of their baby’s head. 

“I have to help the lady next door with her little one, but I’ll be back in a few minutes to get you started nursing,” Constance says. She doesn’t bother waiting for a response, for both Alex and Maggie are too busy taking in the beauty of their daughter’s features: The tiny button nose which, if Alex squints, she thinks she can see a bit of herself in; the wide-set eyes, which definitely resemble her own; the ears, which she traces with her thumb, murmuring, “Sorry, Kid,” in a way that makes Maggie laugh. But she can see the baby’s father in her too, for there’s a high cast to her barely-visible cheekbones and a tinge of olive in her skin and her hair, what little of it she has, is thick and dark — just like Maggie’s. 

And then the baby frowns, yawning, and her brow furrows in a way that causes Maggie to catch her breath and murmur, “Well doesn’t that look familiar.” 

“She’s perfect,” Alex says, her throat too choked with tears for it to come out as anything louder than a whisper, and feels Maggie turn her head and plant a kiss to her temple, the hand that had been wrapped around her shoulders now cradled against her cheek. 

And that’s when their baby girl, who they made together out of nine months and a lifetime of dreams, opens her eyes — beautiful, dark brown eyes — and blinks at them once, as if in wonder. Alex knows then that their first choice for a name is hers, as surely as if she had told it to them herself.

“You think?” Alex murmurs, turning her head to meet Maggie’s gaze.

Maggie nods, her lips pulled tight as if she’s about to burst into tears, and Alex leans toward her, tilting her head upward until Maggie meets her mouth in a slow, sweet kiss. Maggie draws in a thick, heavy breath as it ends and presses a kiss to Alex’s forehead, a whispered “Thank you” brushing across Alex’s skin as she turns to look down at their daughter once again.

“Welcome to the world, Hannah Margaret Danvers,” Alex says, her voice trembling. “It’s so nice to finally meet y —“

A sound like a gunshot ricochets through the room, jolting Alex back into the darkness and the pain. It’s the key, the key turning in the lock, the signal that her respite from cruelty is, for now, at an end. The door swings open, and footsteps echo, the hardwood floors creaking with the tread of two — no, three — sets of boots. Two men, by the heavy gait, and then Lillian’s lighter, sharper tread. Alex shivers as they draw near, as their presence surrounds her on all sides.

“Go on,” Lillian says, in the imperious tone of a command. “Take what you need.”

There is no response, though Alex senses some sort of conversation is underway, one that is being conducted without words in order to exclude her from hearing its content. She strains her senses, as if she can somehow will herself to absorb information from the tense stretch of silence.

“Do it or not,” Lillian says, and it’s clear she’s reached the end of her patience. “I honestly don’t care.”

Alex feels a gloved hand press along her jawline and rears back, but it follows, drawing her head to the side. Alcohol stings against her neck, and an instant later, she feels a needle slide into her jugular. She grunts at the pain, and feels the hand against her cheek soften, a thumb caressing beneath her jawline as if trying to soothe her. It’s strange, and yet somehow eerily familiar. 

The needle withdraws, and alcohol stings against the puncture wound. “Let her bleed,” Lillian says, adding, as if she finds the thought humorous, “What’s one more, considering?”

Alex senses real anger, for the air around her seems disturbed, as if whomever Lillian is speaking to is using agitated hand movements to communicate his response. But Lillian seems unfazed, her calm, cold order more terrifying than any imagined fury. “Leave it and go.”

Alex breathes in as deeply as she can, hearing the heavy, slightly uneven steps retreat until the door creaks open, then closes in what, in a door with less weight, would be without question a slam. She feels a hand in her hair — Lillian’s, of course — and wills herself not to jerk away.

“There now, Alexandra,” Lillian says, and Alex bridles at the use of her full name, at the feel of Lillian’s fingers gliding through her hair as if she’s soothing a recalcitrant horse. “You’ve been so very brave.”

“Why waste time on this?” asks the second man, his rumbling voice both familiar and strangely out of place. _Hank Henshaw,_ Alex thinks, a mix of fear and loathing running through her at the realization, and she longs to recoil, as much as she can, from his presence. But to do so will bring her closer to Lillian, so she forces herself to hold still, to stay, as much as she can, in a safe, neutral balance between the two.

“It is far from a waste,” Lillian says, and for once, her response to a challenge is mild.

“You say that, and yet countless hours have been spent on this,” Henshaw says. “Why not just jam an implant where her heart is and be done with it?”

Alex can’t help but jerk away at the words, and she feels Lillian’s hand fist in her hair, the sharp sting of it causing sparks of color to dance across her eyelids. She draws in a breath, her muscles trembling, and feels nausea rise up in her throat, followed by panic at the thought of what will happen if she vomits with the gag still in place. _Not an implant,_ she thinks, remembering how it had turned John Corben into a mindless killing machine. _Better to slit my throat and be done with it._

“Calm down, Alexandra,” Lillian says, and there is something almost soothing about her voice, something that makes Alex want to give in to her, to accept the promise of kindness that lies beneath, hollow though it may be. “I’m not going to do that. You’re far more precious to me as your beautiful, perfect self.”

“A weak, mewling human, naked and bleeding on her knees?” Henshaw’s voice is loaded with contempt. “I see no value in such games, other than the pleasure you may derive from them.”

“You know the reason why she needs to bleed,” Lillian says, her words directed at Henshaw, and Alex strains again to try and comprehend the subtext of their conversation. “As for why I chose this method of conversion over the more direct route, well, it’s simple. I don’t want to make her into some sort of automaton that’s been given a new software patch. This one…” She pauses, and there is something almost tender in her tone. “This one I want to join us of her own free will. I want her to believe.”

“Never,” Alex forces out from behind the gag, though the word comes out as nothing more than a muffled negation. Pain surges through her as Lillian jerks her hair at the roots, her head drawn back so far that her neck shrieks at the strain. Her mouth stretches, as best it can, in a silent scream, her breath coming in agonized pants.

“Be still, Alexandra,” Lillian murmurs in her ear, and Alex feels her knees nearly give way, though whether it’s due to the threat implied in the words or the promise of mercy if she complies, she’s not sure. She tenses her stomach muscles, straightens her shoulders, and fights the wild, panicked instinct that urges flight. Yet there is nowhere to flee, other than deeper inside her own mind.

She breathes in, out, fights through the panic until she calms. Then Lillian cradles her cheek, though this time, her touch conveys a motherly tenderness. “That’s good, Alexandra,” she says, and Alex feels a sudden, unexpected thrill of pride that she’s done well, that she’s given Lillian a reason to be pleased. That she’ll be safer, happier, if only she can be what Lillian wants her to be. 

And that realization — the cold, hard truth of how deep Lillian has gotten inside her head — makes her feel as if some part of her has died.

She’s still trying to come to terms with the implications of this — that she might be brainwashed, compromised, a risk not only to national security, but to the people she loves — when she hears Henshaw let out a low, dark laugh. “You’ve trained your little pet well.”

“She’s learning.” Lillian strokes Alex’s cheek, her fingernails caressing the skin, and Alex leans in to the touch. She tells herself that it’s easier to let Lillian hold her head up, that it’s not because some part of her craves this connection, but she knows, deep down, that she’s past the point of rejecting any scrap of kindness, no matter what its source. She feels Lillian let go, but gently, guiding Alex’s head until it lolls against her outstretched arm. “I had hoped we would have more time, but if not…”

Alex hears movement behind her, and the next thing she knows, a needle is jabbing deep into the muscle near her right hip. She feels the plunger depress, the liquid rush into the tissue, and lets out a low, keening cry as it floods her system. There is no hot rush as if from a narcotic entering a vein — only the deep, pervasive sense that something has been done that cannot be undone.

“You play these games with this woman, and yet my sense is hers is not the will you truly wish to break,” Henshaw says, sounding almost amused by the realization.

“No. But she will do,” Lillian says. “And she has other uses, should the night not go well.” 

There is a brief, unsettling pause, and then Lillian leans in close, her breath a whisper against Alex’s ear. “No matter how things play out, I’m sure I will see you later, Alexandra. Now be a good girl until then.”

Then Alex hears footsteps, and the creak of the door. She is left in silence, and darkness, and the uncertainty of not knowing how much longer she will survive, or even if she wants to.

_You’re a badass, Danvers. You can do this,_ she hears, the words an echo from both the future and the past. She clings to the memory of Maggie’s voice as she had said them when Alex was in Malverne’s tank, and as she said them in her fantasy of their future, when Maggie held her together with her eyes and her strength and her love. 

She sucks in a breath, straightens her hips as best she can, and turns her wrists to see if she can find some give.

She can do this. She can.

At least until whatever was in that syringe kills her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: restraints, blood, physical and psychological torture.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Superfriends have lunch, and Maggie gets an early wedding present.
> 
> No warnings worth worrying about in this one (I hope).

J’onn sat down in the black leather chair at the head of the conference room table. “Let’s review.”

It was two p.m., and the core rescue team — J’onn, Maggie, Winn, and Kara — were just now settling in for the day’s status update. Maggie, however, had already been in this conference room for hours, except for when she had left it once, briefly, to pee. She and J’onn had started the morning with Eliza, who had given them a more thorough briefing on how Jeremiah’s work on both the Argo fever and Medusa viruses might be a factor in Alex’s disappearance. After that, Maggie had updated J’onn on her meeting with Jeremiah in much more extensive detail, though from the look on his face throughout the conversation she suspected he had already gotten a full recap from M’gann. 

The whole thing had Maggie jonesing to be back in the field, chasing down leads. Yet Jeremiah’s emergence was their first real break in the case, and the only way to capitalize was to make sure they analyzed it as thoroughly as possible before planning their next move. If that meant she had to hold still for a while, well, so be it.

“Maggie,” Kara said, and tossed a sandwich from Noonan’s in her direction. Maggie caught it and pulled away a corner of the wrapper, making sure she had gotten her pineapple tofu teriyaki and not Winn’s quadruple dose of MSG-loaded mystery meat on rye. She cracked open a bottle of water and took a sip, absorbing his technobabble-heavy recap on the latest from their satellite search. 

“And then I cross-referenced it with VICAP and the DEO database, but no dice. So what all this means, basically, is we still got nothing,” Winn said in conclusion. He reached for the fries next to his iPad and began to methodically chew through them like they were his sole source of comfort. “The location of the IP address in Indonesia turns out to be a fish market just outside of Jakarta, and our daily scans of the usual National City hotspots have revealed no indication of Cadmus activity. It’s like they’ve closed up shop.”

“Or moved it to another location,” said James, who had joined them for the status update at Maggie’s request. He’d spent the morning researching National City real estate listings, and with a nod to Winn, the fruits of his labor were displayed on the giant monitor that took up half the conference room wall. “These are all the houses I could find that matched M’gann’s description, but there may be more out there that haven’t been listed in either the paper or any of the real estate magazines that CatCo publishes.”

“Or that haven’t gone through the real estate listing system,” Maggie said, her stomach so tied in knots that it was roiling after just two bites of her sandwich. She swallowed down her discomfort and added, “I had a CI who works in real estate pull everything she could find, but anything that’s a private deal or that’s been off the market for a while would only be traceable through property records. And considering that Lillian is an expert at using shell corporations and false names to hide things she wants to keep secret, this house could be sitting out there in plain sight without any of us knowing it even exists.”

“Can you imagine living in one of those creepy old mansions?” Winn asked, popping yet another fry in his mouth. “Because that’d be _Beauty and the Beast_ -level weird.”

“Dancing silverware would be fun, though,” Kara said. She’d already eaten the first of her two burgers, and was now arranging lettuce and pickles on the second. The tomato slices were banished to a napkin, however, and pushed in Maggie’s direction. “I did a quick flyby over National City on the way over, but nothing caught my attention. And Cat’s on the warpath, so I have to finish my article before I can do anything more.”

“I’ll try to distract her so you can sneak out early.” James crunched his burger wrapper into a ball and tossed it into the empty bag at the center of the table. He looked first at Maggie, then at J’onn. “Is there anything else I can do?” 

“Not at this time, James. Thank you.” J’onn wrapped the remnants of his sandwich into a neat square and dropped it into their makeshift garbage bag. “You’re on point for our field work, Maggie. What do you propose we do next?” 

“As soon as we’re finished, I’m going to start working through James’s list.” Maggie pushed the second half of her sandwich aside, ignoring the eyebrow Kara arched in her direction for leaving it half-eaten. “I know it’s a long shot to think there might be visible activity that would allow me to get a search warrant, but it’s worth putting my eyeballs on every one of these places anyway.”

“I agree,” J’onn said, clasping his hands in front of him. “Now if there’s nothing else…”

And something twisted in Maggie’s stomach; something that had nothing to do with the mix of wheat bread and pineapple and tofu swirling around in it. “I’ve got to ask. Is it just me, or does something feel off about this?” 

“How so?” J’onn asked, fixing her with his hawk-like gaze.

Maggie felt the rest of the eyes in the room follow, but she kept her gaze on him, staying as steady and focused as she did when she was in court and the prosecutor needed her to hammer a point home. “Alex disappears, and we hear nothing for weeks. Then yesterday, as if in answer to our prayers, I start getting texts from none other than Jeremiah Danvers. And when we meet, he lets slip that Alex is right under our noses and gives M’gann an visual image of the location where Alex is being held.” 

“But he couldn’t have known M’gann would be there, or what her capabilities would be,” James pointed out. “Has he even met her?”

“No, but Lillian Luthor knows who she is,” J’onn replied. “It’s possible Lillian has been keeping close enough tabs on our movements that she would know that M’gann returned from Mars in October.” 

“Exactly.” Maggie turned toward Kara, saying, “You combine this with what Eliza said about Jeremiah’s work on Argo fever and his involvement in the development of the Medusa virus, and it makes me wonder if we’re being played.”

“I know you don’t know Jeremiah well, but do you really think that he would do that?” Kara asked. “He’s done some terrible things, and after all those years with Cadmus it’s obvious he’s not the person he used to be, but to sell out Alex that completely…”

“Would be exactly the sort of thing my father would do,” Winn said, and Maggie looked over at him, tilting her head slightly in acknowledgement of their lifetime membership in the ‘kids treated like chess pieces by their fathers’ club. He shrugged his shoulders, one corner of his mouth turning up in a grim half-smile, and pulled up a photo of Jeremiah with a few quick touches of his iPad. “After Jeremiah stole the alien registry, the folks in medical took another look at his psych eval. They said that in retrospect, he…” He shot Kara an apologetic glance. “Well, basically, that he’s become really good at lying, especially to himself.”

“In other words, he’s got a talent for justifying his own actions, and anyone who gets hurt in the process is just collateral damage.” Maggie crossed her arms over her chest and scowled up at Jeremiah’s image. “A lot of people are good at lying to themselves, but bad guys tend to be better at it that most.”

“The question is, how do we turn it to our advantage?” J’onn looked over at Maggie, his gaze thoughtful. “You opted to leave Jeremiah out there rather than try to bring him in. That tells me you think you can work him.”

“Well he disappeared through a portable transmat portal,” Maggie said with a rueful shrug. “But yes, I told M’gann to let him go, mostly because I’m hoping he’ll lead us to wherever Alex is. My gut says that Alex is safer with him there than she would be if he were pulled out of the mix.” 

“You’re hoping he’s acting as a buffer between Alex and Lillian,” James said, and Maggie gave him a quick, appreciative nod. It was a relief to have James there, because he understood her intuitive leaps better than anyone except maybe J’onn. Perhaps it was because he was a photographer, and finding the right angle was his stock in trade; or maybe it was just all the hours they had spent fighting side-by-side during the Daxamite invasion, learning each other’s moves until they always knew exactly where the other would be. 

“That’s my hope. And if not, then…” Maggie glanced over at Kara, trying to soften her next words, though there was no way, really, to make what she was about to say anything but ugly. “At least with Jeremiah there, Alex is less likely to be subjected to one of Cadmus’s extreme physical modifications.”

“You mean if he’s still using her for active experiments, then they won’t turn her into one of their cyborgs,” Kara said, and for perhaps the first time ever, Maggie saw her push food aside — not because she wasn’t hungry, but because the thought of what Maggie had suggested made her feel sick.

“It’s possible,” Maggie said, trying to block the images that were playing through her mind: Of Alex in that tank, trying so hard to be brave while the water rose around her, and then later, floating lifelessly while the last bubble of air drifted from her lungs. “After keeping her alive, my main goal is to make sure that when she’s back, she’s able to be the Alex we love. If that means letting Jeremiah use her as his lab rat while he perfects the Argo fever virus, then we’ll just have to live with that until we can get her back.”

There was silence in the room after that — the same sort of eerie, disbelieving silence that occurred when someone walked into the bullpen to announce an officer down. Maggie found her gaze drifting to the ring on her finger and felt a tug on her heart; the undertow that was Alex, dragging her out to sea. 

“We’re all tired,” J’onn said, his rumble raw but insistent. “We’re all haunted by what Lillian might be doing to Alex, considering the animosity she holds for her in particular. And I think we are all reasonably worried that Cadmus’s larger plan could result in mass casualties, as it nearly did after their last attempt at weaponizing a virus.” He sat quietly until they all felt compelled to look up, his gaze falling on each of them in turn until it ended, at last, with Kara. “If you stay focused, and disciplined, and do the work you need to do, we will find a way to bring Alex home.”

It was the pep talk the others needed: Winn sprang out of his chair with a renewed vigor, and James smiled broadly, giving him a light punch on the shoulder while they exchanged some private joke. Kara, meanwhile, scooped up her abandoned burger and her last packet of fries, clutching at them like a life raft. She turned to Maggie, hope shining in her gaze. “I have to get back to CatCo, but after that, I can help with the house search. Say around six?”

“Whenever you’re free.” Maggie held out her own packet of barely-touched fries. “Here. Take these too.”

“I can stop and get more on my way in to the office.” Kara glanced down at the uneaten half of Maggie’s sandwich, frowning. “Come on, Maggie. You know you have to eat.”

“I’m good for now.” Maggie gathered up the remains of her sandwich and held it out in offering too. “You want some pineapple tofu teri —“

“No,” Kara said, with the emphatic hatred she reserved for all things healthy. She snatched the fries out of Maggie's hand and smiled that wry, so-not-Supergirl smile that Maggie was fairly sure she’d learned from Alex. “If you can’t finish it now, you should stash your freaky vegetable sandwich for later.”

“Suit yourself,” Maggie said, and rewrapped the sandwich so that she could put it in the break room refrigerator. It was only then that she realized that a good percentage of the food wrappers were still strewn across the conference room table. Kara, James, and Winn, however, were already out the door. 

“I’m going to be your sister-in-law, not your maid,” Maggie grumbled, though she couldn’t help but chuckle as she gathered up the pile of burger wrappers and used napkins. She used the cleanest of the lot to wipe up the stray fries and burger crumbs before dumping everything into the abandoned Noonan’s bag and tossing it all into the garbage. Then she walked over to J’onn, who was still standing on the far side of the table, his attention focused on the image of Jeremiah on the display screen.

“You really think he’s protecting her?” J’onn asked, his voice weighed down by centuries of grief.

“I think…” Maggie waited for J’onn to look at her, the despair in his eyes an echo of her own. “Jeremiah needs to think he’s a hero, so he’ll protect Alex. Not in the way we would, but he’ll protect her.”

“But not break her out and bring her home,” J’onn said.

Maggie shook her head, her throat too tight to do anything more, and felt J’onn exhale, but silently, as if letting out just enough pain that he could focus. “Based on what you said earlier, I sense you feel as if there’s something missing from our analysis.”

“You sense, or my mind is blasting it loud and clear?” Maggie asked, and heard J’onn laugh for the first time since Alex had disappeared.

“I try not to pry, as you know, but some things are easier to read than others.” J’onn crossed his arms over his chest and lifted one hand to his chin, his gaze fixed, once again, on Jeremiah’s face. “He’s the key. But why?”

“I can’t see the pattern yet.” Maggie turned toward the display, studying it until her eyes started to burn. _We have to make it easier than this,_ she thought, before asking, “Could you get me a whiteboard?”

“You need the process to be more tactile?” J’onn asked, a hint of admiration in his voice, as if three hundred years of living on Earth had given him an appreciation for the simplicity of less modern methods.

“Call me old-fashioned, or maybe just someone who likes to put puzzles together,” Maggie said, thinking of all those times when, marker or thumbtack in hand, she had taken a step back from the board and seen a case anew. 

“I’m sure we can find something that meets your needs.” J’onn looked down at her for a long moment, his gaze gradually shifting from approving mentor to fond father. Then he walked over to the cabinet on the far side of the room and removed an evidence bag. “I have something for you.” 

He brought it to her, unsealing the top of the bag and letting the sole item inside drop into his hand. “The lab finished their analysis late this morning, so I thought you might want this back.”

Maggie realized then that he was offering her Alex’s ring, though not as it had looked when she had handed it over last night. Both metal and stone were now as pristine as they had been the second Maggie put them on Alex’s finger, and the ache of it – the sharp, hard brutality of that memory, of kneeling in the surf while Alex looked over at her with forever in her eyes, was a pain so sharp that even breathing seemed too much to bear. 

“You had it cleaned?” she asked, but softly, because anything louder was sure to trigger the sobs that lurked deep and low in her chest, waiting for their chance to escape.

“Winn took it to a jeweler’s this morning after we finished our analysis.” J’onn dug into his pocket, fishing out a sturdy silver chain. “I thought perhaps you would want to keep it with you.” 

Maggie’s jaw tightened at that, and she huffed out a breath. She lifted the ring from J’onn’s hand, holding it between her thumb and middle finger, and ran the meat her index finger across the words engraved on the inside of the band. “Thank you.” 

“You’re welcome.” J’onn unclasped the chain, holding one end steady so Maggie could thread it through the ring. “Analysis was indeterminate, by the way. Definitely traces of human blood, but nothing that showed up in our database.” 

“She fought like hell.” Maggie fastened the sturdy clasp and pulled the chain over her head until it settled on her neck, her hand falling to clutch at the ring as it dangled against her sternum. Then she asked the question that had been haunting her since Jeremiah handed her the ring; the same one that had made it difficult to get more than a few hours of sleep last night. “Was any of it hers?”

“A trace.” J’onn clenched his jaw, and Maggie saw the face of a father who had failed his child. “Only a trace.”

“We work with what we’ve got,” Maggie said, and for an instant they just stared at each other, joined in a silent pact to make certain that Alex's sacrifice had not been in vain. Then Maggie turned and pulled her jacket off the back of her chair, saying, “I should start my canvas.”

“Before you go…” J’onn returned to the cabinet and removed a second item: A Kevlar vest, smaller and lighter than any she’d ever seen. “I’d like you to put this on before you go back out.”

Maggie walked over and peered down at the material. It seemed to shimmer in the light, and when she ran a fingertip over it, it felt smooth as silk. It was also far thinner than anything she’d seen before — so thin, in fact, that she could wear it under her clothing as easily as a tank top. “This can stop a bullet?”

“We developed it for a…well, let’s just say, for a very high profile dignitary.” Maggie’s head snapped up at that, and J’onn cracked a grin. “Yes. Her.”

“You’re telling me you’re giving me tech that was used by the president?” Maggie asked, feeling her mouth go dry at the thought.

“Yes, though we have plenty of applications for it here at the DEO.” J’onn looked down at Maggie, his instinct to protect seemingly warring with his inclination to treat her as an equal. The latter must have won, because he said, “Alex had planned to give this to you as a wedding gift, but under the circumstances, I felt it best you have it now.”

“You mean because according to Jeremiah, Cadmus has a price on my head?” Maggie asked. 

Then it hit her: Alex had cared enough to have DEO tech custom made for her protection, because Alex loved her that much. And that thought — of how far Alex would go to protect her — almost took Maggie out at the knees. 

“Alex would want you to be safe.” J’onn cleared his throat, quietly adding, “As we all do, Maggie. I need you to be smart out there, for our sake as well as hers.”

Maggie nodded, absorbing his words; absorbing the gift under her hands, this gift that was more than protection. It was a promise, a commitment to the life that they would build together, because in the world they inhabited, safety equaled a chance to live their dreams.

“I want to be the first one in,” Maggie said, and saw J’onn startle at the words. “When we go, my face is the first one she sees.”

“I think that would be only fair.” J’onn waited for Maggie to take the vest, then put a hand on her shoulder, his touch reassuring. “Report back when you have something, Detective.”

Maggie looked up at him, seeing both hope and worry in his eyes. The hope was stronger; the hope would always be stronger, because Alex, perhaps better than any of them, knew how to stand tall in even the worst of storms. “I won’t give up, J’onn.” 

“And neither will I,” J’onn said, and Maggie knew then that, if push came to shove, they would both sacrifice everything, even their own lives, to win Alex’s freedom. 

Maggie nodded and clutched at the ring dangling from her neck. She held it close, feeling the stone dig into her palm, and said, “I should go look at some fancy houses and see if I can find where these crazies are keeping our girl.”

“Get to it, Detective Sawyer,” J’onn said with a solemn nod. “I won’t accept anything but results.”

“Neither will I,” Maggie replied. 

Then she headed toward the locker room to don the armor that Alex had wanted her to wear, as a sign of her commitment and love.

It was time to stop talking and do it justice.

It was time to find Alex.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maggie gets a lead, but nothing is ever easy.
> 
> Please see end notes for trigger warnings.

“Can I help you?” 

Maggie glanced in her rearview mirror and saw a thirty-something white lady in running gear — all black, and all very expensive — approaching the Charger from an angle. She stopped a few feet from the car and looked down at Maggie with the sort of wariness that was inevitably a prelude to threatening to call the cops. 

“Is there a reason why you’re here?” she asked, pushing her artfully tousled blonde hair out of her eyes. The implications of her question were obvious; why was Maggie, a woman with brown skin, sitting in a parked car that hadn’t been made in Germany in the middle of one of the richest neighborhoods in the city?

“I’m with the NCPD, ma’am.” Maggie flashed her badge, forcing herself to adopt the bland, business-like attitude that all cops with the wrong color skin were expected to exhibit when dealing with this sort of casual racism. She hated it; they all did, but it’s what the brass expected, and Maggie hadn’t made detective by thirty without paying at least some attention to what the higher-ups wanted.

“This is a quiet neighborhood. Everyone keeps to themselves,” the woman said, and it suddenly became clear that not only was she not crazy about brown people, but she didn’t like cops much either. She folded her arms across her chest and stared down at Maggie, clearly expecting an explanation as to why the NCPD was violating the sanctity of this exclusive enclave. 

“I’m following a lead on a case.” Maggie pointed toward the house across the street, the fifth on a long list of high-end properties that James had compiled. “Have you ever seen any unusual activity over there? People coming and going at odd hours or frequent deliveries?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Donaldson are a nice retired couple,” the woman replied, and though her tone continued to be snappish, at least she was giving Maggie information that could be verified. “He’s in finance, and she used to be on a TV show back in the seventies. Except for when their grandkids visit, you’d barely know they live there.”

“So that’s a no.” Maggie grabbed the printout off the passenger seat, scribbling the couple’s last name on it before putting an _X_ next to the address. She looked up at the woman, giving her a tight smile, and said, “Thank you for your time.”

“Of course, officer.” The woman drew back a step, and Maggie could see the moment when it occurred to her that she had been rude to someone who might be useful in the future. “I’m sorry if I seemed concerned before. I just thought…” She shrugged. “You can’t be too careful.”

Maggie started up the Charger. “I’m a detective, ma’am,” she said, putting the car into gear. “And I know what you thought.”

She hit the gas a little harder than was necessary when she pulled away. It wasn’t smart to let the woman’s words get under her skin; but then again, her skin was why they’d been said in the first place.

She continued along the twisting, turning canyon road for about a mile, then paused at a stop sign to confirm the route to her next location. The last vestiges of November sunlight were fading fast behind the hills, but there was still enough illumination for Maggie to catch a glimpse of the ornate houses that lurked behind the thick gates and high walls that lined the roadway. This was no ordinary neighborhood, even by National City standards; it was a hideaway for power brokers and movie stars and, if what Jeremiah had claimed was true, for Cadmus too.

She was nearing her destination when a call for support in creating a perimeter for the fire raging in a nearby canyon came across her radio. Before she could hear the exact location, it was drowned out by the sound of a chopper moving fast and low overhead. She looked up, catching a glimpse of a rescue unit speeding across the sky. 

“Stay safe, guys,” she said, and pulled to a stop in front of the next house on the list. This one had a gray brick façade that was broken by evenly spaced French windows, each of which opened onto a balcony that ran the length of the house. It looked like something out of a fairy tale, though a far different sort than the one she had imagined when she and Alex had talked about getting a house of their own. 

“I’d like someplace with a yard,” Alex had said on the night they’d drawn that first rough sketch of what they wanted their life together to be. “Maybe even in walking distance of the beach, because I miss hearing the ocean.”

“That’s going to be a bitch of a commute,” Maggie had replied, before realizing, “except not for you, because your sister can fly you in on bad traffic days.”

Alex had just grinned that smart-ass grin of hers, the one that said if she had to deal with all the baggage that came with having a Kryptonian sibling, the least she could do was take advantage of the perks. And then…

Maggie bit the inside of her lip, hoping the pain would pull her mind away from thoughts of the rest of that night, when they had talked through their plans for careers and dogs and, eventually, kids. They had committed to each other that night with their bodies and then, later, with the ring that encircled Maggie’s finger. But it was impossible to forget that its companion was on a chain around her neck instead of on Alex’s hand where it belonged. 

“I’ll get it back there, I promise,” Maggie murmured, her fingers finding the ring pressed against her breastbone. Tears threatened, and she blinked them away, returning her attention to the house that she was supposed to be canvassing. It didn’t look like the sort of place Lillian would hole up in — beyond a low wall, the security measures seemed non-existent — but without any visible sign of its occupants, it would have to be investigated further.

She grabbed her pen and put a question mark next to the house’s address, then started to load the next place on her list into her GPS. Just then her phone rang, and she snatched it from its place on the center console.

 _Lena Luthor,_ said the display, and Maggie dared to let her hopes spike skyward.

“Lena, hi,” Maggie said, pressing the phone to her ear. “You have something for me?”

“Possibly.” Lena’s tone was cautious, but there was an undercurrent in her voice, one that Maggie recognized, with a sudden surge of elation, as triumph. “I didn’t find anything in the property records themselves, but I’m guessing that’s because my mother scrubbed them clean. So then I started looking at shipping records, because if there’s one thing I know about my mother, it’s that she doesn’t travel light.”

“Does this mean you found something?” Maggie asked, and put the still-idling car in gear. 

“I think so.” Maggie heard the shuffling of papers, the quick clack of a keyboard, and then Lena said, “About five years ago, there was a series of shipments to a location on the northern outskirts of National City, within the boundaries of what would be considered the Hills.” 

“Text it to me?” Maggie asked, as she drove the car down to the stop sign at the end of the street. She waited there, her heart racing in anticipation of the ding that would indicate an incoming text alert.

“On its way,” Lena said, and then added, in a tone full of portent, “and by the way, the shipments were designated with the number 82.”

“Should that mean something to me?” Maggie asked. 

“Oh, um…sorry,” Lena said, and Maggie couldn’t help but smile, because there was something so charming about hearing Lena Luthor react like a sheepish schoolgirl. “Maggie, 82 is the atomic number for lead. And I think that may mean…”

“That Lillian's made that house Supergirl-proof.” Maggie was itching to get that address plugged into her GPS, yet she made herself wait long enough to say, “Thanks, Lena. I owe you.”

“You’re welcome. Good luck,” Lena said, though Maggie disconnected the call before the last word was out. She pulled up the text and punched the address into her GPS, frowning when she realized how close it was to the canyon fire. Roadblocks might be a problem, but Maggie figured she could get through them if she had to. And besides, she had access to Supergirl. 

She put on her blinker, made a left, and resisted the urge to hit the sirens so she could get there faster. She called Kara at a stoplight, and was relieved when she picked up on the first ring.

“Maggie, I’m so sorry,” Kara said before Maggie could even get out a hello. “I need another hour here at CatCo and then I’ll meet you. Is that okay?”

“That’ll give me time to scout out the lead Lena just gave me,” Maggie said, and though she was trying to be calm, her excitement leaked through. “I’m headed there now.”

“You think it might be where they have Alex?” Kara said, and Maggie heard a crash, as if Kara had stood up from her desk too fast and knocked something to the floor. 

“Slow your roll, Kid,” Maggie cautioned, and could all-but-see Kara’s brow furrowing behind her square-cut Tina Fey glasses. “Just finish your work while I go get the lay of the land. I don’t think we’ll be storming the place tonight.”

“But this might be the one?” Kara asked, and let out a not-quite-steady breath.

“Yeah.” Maggie took a curve a little faster than she should have, hearing the Charger’s engine roar as she corrected just in time to avoid contact with an oncoming Lamborghini. “Yeah. I think it’s possible this might be the one.”

Her hand was shaking as she ended the call. She clenched it tight around the steering wheel and concentrated on the whirling roller coaster of climbs, drops, and hairpin turns that was the road in front of her until, at last, she made a right onto the street where the address was located. The house was easy to peg, even from a distance; a rectangular white brick mansion, centered on a massive, perfectly manicured property, complete with high walls and a wrought-iron gate that would have put Louis XIV to shame. Maggie was tempted to drive past, but instead she turned, pulling onto a fire road that had been cut into the hillside. She followed it upward about 1500 feet until the hills were spread out below her, then found a level spot at the apex of a curve and pulled over, turning off the Charger’s engine. 

She simply observed for a while, noting as many details as possible: the French windows inset with geometrical precision along each of the mansion's two wings; the wrought-iron balcony that ran along each side; the curved, gabled windows on the third floor that peered out of the slate gray roofline like watchful eyes. There was a light on in one of them, though it dimmed for an instant, as if someone moving past the window had briefly blocked its glow. She tried not to think about Alex locked up inside of those rooms; tried to focus on something other than the fear that she might be frightened or in pain or, worse yet, under Lillian’s sway. If they were going to get her out of there, they needed to be methodical, to understand patterns, schedules, routines. And most importantly, they needed to know if Lillian was there, for Maggie had no doubt that she was keeping Alex close. Alex was Lillian's ace in the hole, after all; her greatest asset and bargaining chip.

Maggie’s phone rang, and she brought it to her ear. “Hey, Kara.”

“Hey, sorry I’m late,” Kara said over the sound of wind whipping around her. “Ms. Grant wanted me to rework something for the morning edition and I couldn’t say no.” 

“You have to keep your job.” Maggie pulled a pair of binoculars out of her console, hoping she might catch a glimpse of a figure through the windows, but she was too far away. “Maybe just take a quick pass and let me know what you can see. From what Lena told me, it’s possible they may have shielded the whole thing with lead.”

“Seriously?” Kara’s irritation rippled down the line. “Doesn’t Lillian have anything better to do with her time?”

“Apparently not.” Maggie heard a boom and followed the sound, aiming her binoculars toward the canyon fire off in the distance. What had looked like the low, red embers of a near-dead fire was now burning hot and fast, its flames grasping at the sky. “Shit, that canyon is going up like a torch.”

“Someone’s propane tank just went up,” Kara said, and then, an instant later, “Maggie, there are some people trapped there. I —“ 

“Go,” Maggie urged. “I’m heading back to the DEO to update J’onn anyway. I don’t want to do anything else until we’ve given him a chance to review the plans for this place. Blasting in there blind and without backup will put Alex at too much risk.”

“I understand,” Kara said, and though Maggie’s impatient, super-powered soon-to-be sister-in-law didn’t sound thrilled, she seemed willing to go along with a more cautious approach. “I’ll meet you back at the DEO.”

The call ended, and Maggie caught a flash, quicker than the blink of an eye, of what looked like a blue and red missile diving into the flames.

“Go get ‘em, Supergirl,” Maggie said, dropping her phone into the cup holder. She returned her attention to the mansion in the distance, her eye drawn, once again, to the light burning in the gabled windows. “Hold on, Baby,” she murmured as she started the car, hoping that somehow, Alex could feel her words. “I’m coming to get you as soon as I can.”

She put the car into gear and started to pull forward, the tires spinning a little before catching hold of the rough dirt and gravel. It was only then that she heard the sudden roar, one that took a moment to process as the thrum of an engine accelerating. Headlights fixated on her through the darkness, their glare blinding her as a black Humvee screeched to a halt within a foot of the nose of the Charger.

“Fuck,” she breathed, and heard the gears protest as she slammed the car into reverse, her foot hard into the pedal before she could even look behind her. She turned and saw another set of headlights coming up fast in the rearview, dirt rising up beneath the wheels as it came to a halt just inches from her back bumper. She jammed on the brake, already reaching for her gun as she caught a glimpse of a third Humvee taking aim at her driver’s side door. 

_This is happening,_ she realized, and aimed her Glock out the open window.

She got off four shots before the impact: One at the headlight, and three straight into the windshield. The bullets nicked the bulletproof glass but didn’t make a dent, didn’t do much of anything to slow down the vehicle slamming into the Charger just inches from her head. She twisted away at the last second, lifting one arm to protect her face as the car rocked to the right, lifting upward on its passenger side wheels before dropping, with a sickening lurch, onto the ground again. Gravity slammed her hard into her belts, drove her forehead within inches of the steering wheel, before jolting her back into the headrest of her seat. 

The Humvee backed up and came around for a second attempt, one that was sure to take her over the edge of the road and down into the thick foliage just beneath the rise. It smashed into her at full force, the door crumpling inward as the car skidded sideways and nearly rolled. Maggie felt it start to go and pulled her arms in toward her chest, trying to make herself as small and self-contained as she could. But the car didn’t roll; instead, it dropped back onto its wheels and skidded down the embankment, sliding faster and faster until, with a screech of buckling metal, the passenger side slammed into a tree.

For a moment it felt like the world had stopped. Maggie heard a buzzing in her ears, and then a loud rasp that might have been her own indrawn breath. She opened her eyes, her mind cataloging but not quite absorbing details: the door pushed in on her left, the steering wheel canted sideways from the force. The car’s motor was no longer running, but the dashboard lights were still on, providing the only illumination outside of the stars and moon. She looked down and saw something dark and oily on her hands; blood, probably. Her blood. 

She heard the slam of a car door, followed by footsteps. She knew this was bad, knew it meant she needed to find her weapon, but it had been lost somewhere in the chaos, both it and her phone tossed out of reach by the crash. And so she couldn’t do much but turn her head and watch as a face appeared in the darkness, the face of a man with white skin and blond hair, his cold, hard features like Death itself. He raised his weapon, his face holding no expression, and fired.

The first bullet slammed into Maggie like a fastball to the chest; the second like a kick to the gut. But it was the third, the one her vest didn’t catch, that made stars explode behind her eyes. Her back arched as fire shot through her right leg, radiating outward from just above her knee. She’d taken a knife to the thigh once, and this felt like that, only worse, because this time there was a hot, fast gush of blood soaking into her jeans. 

She turned her head and waited for the fourth shot, the one that would take her out of this world. Instead, she heard Lillian’s frosty tones echo through the man’s radio. “Andrews, is it done?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the man said. “Sawyer has been taken off the board.”

“Good,” Lillian said, as if Maggie’s death was nothing more than an item on her to-do list. “Get back to base before you’re spotted.”

“Understood.” Andrews took a step back, his black uniform causing him to fade into the darkness until he was nothing but a shadow against the trees. He tilted his head to the side, his eyes steady, and pointed his weapon straight at Maggie’s head. “Nothing personal.” 

“Never is,” Maggie rasped, staring him down. She saw his eyes narrow, seemingly surprised she didn’t look away, and then he nodded once, acknowledging her bravery. His grip tightened, and Maggie tensed, hoping it would be quick. But she didn't want to die like this, and so she sent her mind spinning outward, searching for something to cling to as she left this earth.

She found it in five words, words so shocking that a small part of Maggie still questioned whether she might be caught in some fantastical dream. “I love you, Maggie Sawyer,” echoed in her ears, Alex’s voice the sweetest music she’d ever heard, and she drew in a startled breath, not unlike the one she had taken when Alex had said those words for the first time.

“I love you, Alex Danvers,” she breathed, and watched, as if from far away, as Andrews slid his finger over the trigger. 

A sudden whir like a storm of insects buzzed overhead, moving fast above the towering pines. Andrews tensed and tilted his head up, and soon after a shorter, stockier figure appeared beside him, saying, “We need to go.”

“Soon as I finish this,” Andrews said, his ice blue eyes tilting down to focus, once again, on Maggie’s face.

“Too much activity up there,” the second man said, pointing up at the sky. He peered inside the car, and Maggie caught a glimpse of a craggy nose and shifty brown eyes. “Besides, she’s bleeding out. I give her three minutes, tops.”

Andrews ducked inside the window, and Maggie willed her arms to rise, her right fist to lift up and swing around, slamming into his neck before she pulled his head down against the twisted remnants of the door. But her shoulders refused to work, the signal lost, somehow, between her fluttering heart and a set of lungs that were finding it increasingly hard to breathe. She just stared at him, limp and helpless, while the blood continued to pool around her legs.

“Guess I hit the jackpot with your femoral artery,” Andrews said, his face only inches from hers. He smiled, a mocking cruelty in his eyes. “You get to have an open casket after all.” 

He withdrew from the car, and Maggie heard two sets of footsteps crunching over the gravel and foliage that had been disturbed by the Charger’s wild careen off the road. Branches rustled, doors slammed, and then the trio of Humvees pulled away, leaving behind a desolate stillness. 

_Move,_ she thought as adrenaline flooded her system, her body going into overdrive in what, she suspected, was a last desperate bid to keep itself alive. She fumbled at her belt, clinging to the vague hope that she could somehow wrap it around her leg and cinch it tight until help arrived. But her hands were cold, they were so cold, and they just wouldn’t work anymore. And everything was going dark around the edges.

She closed her eyes, hearing the wind whispering through the trees, the branches sighing as they swayed back and forth. The pain was fading now, replaced by a drifting numbness that was seeping inside her bones. She felt herself hollowing out, her mind untethering until it felt like she was watching from a distance. And then came a voice; her grandmother’s voice, low and soft in her ear. _Aguente, Pequinina. Aguente._

“Alex,” she whispered, though she wasn’t sure if it was an actual spoken word or just a flickering thought, lingering within the confines of her dying brain.

She sank downward, into darkness, into silence.

Into where she ceased to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for: Car accident, guns, shooting, blood, annoying racist white lady.
> 
> To reiterate: No canon lesbians will die in the making of this fic.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Like I'm gonna give away one single thing about how that cliffhanger gets resolved...

“Maggie?”

The voice scraped across Maggie’s senses like a flash of lighting crackling across a pitch-black sky. She tried to open her eyes, to say something to soothe the panic behind those syllables, but she had drifted too far, the tethers that bound her to her body too far unraveled. There were no words where she was headed, she knew that much; nothing but an emptiness that might, if she were very lucky, feel something like peace. 

And then she heard a shriek of metal, the car shaking around her like it was being torn apart, and she was back, trapped in the pain and the fear and the blood flooding out far too fast.

“Kara,” she whispered as a hand grasped at her seatbelt, ripping it away in one swift tug. “It’s too much.”

“I’ve got you,” Kara said, and Maggie felt strong arms slide under her shoulders and beneath her legs. Pain arced through her, spitting and sparking like a downed power line, but she was too weak to do anything but let out a low moan as Kara lifted her out of the car and laid her on a bed of trampled grass. Then came a soft gasp. “Oh, Rao. This is bad.”

“Tell…Alex,” Maggie said, grasping at Kara with sticky, blood-soaked hands. She opened her eyes and tried to focus on Kara, who was looking down at her with such worry in her gaze. But it was the stars over her shoulder that caught Maggie’s attention; the stars that beckoned. 

“Tell her,” she breathed, and fought to hold on long enough to see Kara nod.

But Kara shook her head, her mouth twisting in a determined line. “Tell her yourself,” she grated, and tore a hole in Maggie’s blood-soaked jeans. She clamped one hand around Maggie’s leg just below the knee, pinning her shoulder to the ground with the other, and looked down at Maggie, her gaze a mix of compassion and regret.

“This is going to hurt,” she said, and then, as her eyes changed to a molten red, “I’m so sorry.” 

There was a flash of blue, a smell of charred meat, a heat like molten metal searing Maggie’s flesh from her bones. She arched upward, screaming, but the hands holding her down were relentless, and the pain went on and on. 

And then, like the flip of a light switch, everything went dark.

\-------

_Red. Swaddling, surrounding. Nothing but red._

“Maggie? Maggie, hang in there. Maggie, please.”

_Wind. Weightlessness. Frantic speed._

“Is that…oh, my God, that’s Maggie. What happened?”

_A bed, a light. Hands touching her. So many hands._

“…get her clothes off. Let’s get the saline wide open, type and cross-match…”

_Words whispered in her ear, from someone who wasn’t there._

“Hold on. Promise me.”

_Fire. Pain. Darkness._

 

\-------

 

Maggie’s awareness came back by degrees: A hand on her cheek, a murmur of voices, fingers encircling her wrist. Like bubbles, each one led her toward the surface until, at last, she broke through.

She flexed her fingers, feeling smooth cotton beneath them, a warm weight blanketing her entire body. A strange languor slid through her veins, and she sensed that just beyond it lay pain barely being kept at bay. She swallowed once, her tongue rasping like sandpaper against the roof of her mouth, and struggled to open her eyes.

“Go slow, Sweetheart,” said a soothing voice from somewhere to her left. Fingertips brushed across her forehead, drawing hair away from her eyes. She relaxed into the touch, letting herself rest for a moment while that same gentle voice asked, “Are you thirsty?”

Maggie nodded, though the movement seemed to take far more effort than it should. She felt something cold against her lower lip and opened her mouth, allowing two small chunks of ice to slide inside and melt against her tongue.

“You’re okay.” Maggie felt a hand press gently against the top of her head, and with that touch, she fell back into a quiet, womblike stillness, drifting there for what felt like a very long time. It took the rustle of a page to bring her back, the sound making her curious enough that she felt the need to open her eyes.

She recognized her surroundings as the medbay at the DEO, though the harsh, white light that usually shimmered overhead had been turned down to a soft, muted orange. There was a monitor to her left, displaying her vitals, and alongside it was an IV bag filled with a clear solution, its tubing snaking down until it disappeared beneath the blankets. She moved her fingers and felt the telltale twinge of an IV needle inside her left hand, but to her surprise, a second, matching twinge occurred when she did the same with her right. She turned in that direction, squinting, and saw a bag of dark-colored liquid labeled DANVERS hanging from a second IV stand. 

“You needed a transfusion,” said the same soft voice as before. 

Maggie followed the sound, blinking several times until her foggy brain processed that Eliza was sitting in a chair near the medbay windows, clad in jeans and a heavy gray cardigan sweater, with what appeared to be one of Alex’s medical journals draped across her lap. She had the worn, slightly disheveled look of someone who had been dragged out of bed in the middle of the night. 

“What —“ The word caught in her throat, and Maggie paused, swallowing, before trying again. “What time is it?”

“Just before five a.m.” Eliza closed the journal and set it next to her purse, then stood up, drawing the chair closer to the bed. “How are you feeling?” she asked, clasping Maggie’s forearm beneath the thick layer of blankets.

“Like I got shot, but you guys have me so pumped full of morphine that I don’t fucking care,” Maggie rasped.

Eliza chuckled softly, one corner of her mouth turning upward, and then looked over at the monitor. After a moment she sat down, quietly saying, “Kara found you and flew you back. The bullet missed your femur, but you’ll need some surgery to clean up scar tissue around the wound site.”

“From when Kara had to cauterize it so I wouldn’t bleed out?” Maggie asked.

Eliza nodded. “It was the smart choice, though I know it must have been horrible for you.”

“Better than dying,” Maggie said, and Eliza rubbed her arm, her blue eyes filled with a quiet empathy.

“I’m sure Kara will want to see you when she gets back,” Eliza said, drawing the chair closer to the bed and settling back into it. “She’s out with J’onn right now, checking out the location you found.”

“I’m guessing it’s the right place, especially with Lillian’s goon squad showing up when they did.” Maggie dragged in a careful breath, feeling the bruises on her ribs and stomach when she inhaled, and on her chest when she exhaled. “Bastards caught me off guard. It was stupid.”

“You couldn’t have known.” Eliza squeezed her hand through the blankets, saying, “And in the meantime, you need to rest so you can heal.”

Maggie nodded, and for an instant her eyes drifted closed, the drugs singing their sweet, siren song. When she jerked back into awareness, it was with a sudden realization of what was going on beneath the blankets tucked all the way to her chin. “Why am I not wearing any clothes?”

“You’d lost so much blood that the doctors needed to get you under the warming blankets as fast as possible,” Eliza explained, and then added, as if slightly amused, “I guess this just seemed more efficient.”

“Or Hamilton figured it would keep me in bed,” Maggie groused.

“She might have mentioned something about that.” Eliza untucked the blankets near Maggie’s hand, then traced the IV line with her fingers until she found what she was searching for. “This controls your pain meds,” she said, wrapping Maggie’s fingers around a bit of smooth, round plastic. “Just press down on the plunger as many times as you need until you feel comfortable.”

“Thank you.” The pain was starting to creep in little by little, Maggie’s chest, torso, and leg all calling out for attention. She pressed the plunger once, just enough to quiet the worst of it, fighting her body’s insistence that she keep going until the morphine knocked her out. She was, she realized, not quite ready to let go of Eliza’s soothing presence, though that seemed selfish, especially when she could be getting some desperately needed sleep.

“You don’t have to be here,” Maggie said, though every part of her longed for Eliza to stay. 

Eliza’s brow furrowed as if she was trying to puzzle out this statement. “Where else would I be?” she asked finally, her voice gentle.

“Well, at Kara’s, or…” Maggie felt her mind slip out of gear, and she blinked as the thought came to her; that this was the first time she’d gotten seriously hurt on the job and awakened to someone sitting at her bedside. At last she said, “I just mean that you could be at home, asleep, instead of on that awful plastic chair.”

But Eliza must have heard the currents under the surface, because she peeled the blanket away from Maggie’s hand just enough that she could tangle their fingers together. “I have three daughters now,” she said, and Maggie felt a lump form in her throat at the admission. “One is missing, one is out there trying to find her, and one is hurt and needs someone to watch over her.” She gave Maggie’s hand a gentle squeeze. “I can’t help my other two girls. But I can help you.”

It wasn’t just the words that made tears spring to Maggie’s eyes; it was the earnest, devoted look on Eliza’s face as she said them. “What is it about Danvers women making me cry?” Maggie asked, and tried to blink the tears back before they escaped.

“Perhaps it means you’re meant to be one of us,” Eliza said, and then accidentally poked Maggie’s bare ass beneath the blankets. It sent them both into a fit of giggles, dissipating the intensity of the moment just enough to make it bearable.

“Sorry, Sweetheart,” Eliza said, and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “Welcome to the family?” 

“I guess.” Maggie stretched beneath the blankets, searching for a more comfortable position, and turned her head to work out an ache in her neck. Her eyes lit on the DANVERS on the blood bag connected to her right hand, and she squinted, her mind slowly making the connection she had missed before. 

“Is that…” She looked over at Eliza, her eyes widening. “Are they giving me Alex’s blood?”

Eliza nodded. “Kara and I agreed that Alex would want you to have her banked blood since the two of you are a match. And before you start worrying…” She pulled up the sleeve of her sweater, revealing a wad of gauze taped to the crook of her arm. “I already donated to replace at least some of it, should she need any when she’s brought in.”

“Oh,” Maggie said. She felt as if she was walking through a minefield, only the mines were loaded with all the ways that Alex’s family had taken her for their own. It hadn’t been what she’d expected when she first met Alex; in fact, she’d been fully prepared to live her life without ever feeling like she had people she could count on. But if the last few hours had made anything clear, it was that both Kara and Eliza would fight for her just as hard as they would for Alex or each other. And as terrifying as that was, Maggie wanted it in ways that she hadn’t allowed herself to think about for the better part of seventeen years.

“I should let you rest,” Eliza said after a moment, and Maggie clutched at her hand.

“Just…” She took a breath, waiting for her voice to steady. “Do you know where my ring went?”

Eliza slid a hand beneath the folds of her sweater and drew forth a familiar silver chain. There were two rings hanging from it now rather than one, the soft clink as they dangled together echoing through the subdued quiet of the darkened medbay. “Right here next to Alex’s.”

“Oh, good.” Maggie could feel that she was growing close to needing another hit of her pain meds, but she fought through it, softly asking, “Can I…could I look at them?”

“Of course.” Eliza rose and drew the chain off her neck, holding the two nearly identical rings in the palm of her hand. “I don’t know how you tell them apart.”

“Mine’s a size smaller than Alex’s,” Maggie explained, staring down at the titanium bands, the matching diamonds taking on a golden glow in the muted medbay light. “And they each have a different inscription.”

“I didn’t realize that.” Eliza sat down, the rings still cradled in her hand. “What does Alex’s say, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Hers goes back to when she was kidnapped last spring,” Maggie said, and felt afresh the agony of watching Alex try so hard to be brave while the water rose past her knees. “There was a point where I could talk to her, and she was struggling to believe that she was going to get through, and so I told her — I told her —“ She drew in a sharp breath as a crack formed in the wall she had put around her fear of what might be happening to Alex; that at any given moment she could be in a situation equally as awful, if not worse, than what had happened to her on that horrifying day. 

“Sweetheart, you should rest,” Eliza said, but Maggie just shook her head. 

“I told her that I needed her to hold on until I could get to her, because we’d just started this.” Maggie bit the inside of her lip, pushing through the pain and the grief to finish, for no other reason to remind herself that Alex was strong and brave enough to keep fighting right down to her last breath. “I made her promise that she would hold on for our lifetime of firsts.”

“So that’s what her ring says?” Eliza asked, her thumb tracing across the larger of the two rings. “’Lifetime of firsts’?” 

Maggie nodded. “It’s what we promised each other, when it was all over.” She drew in a deep, ragged breath and added, “When she was safe.”

Eliza smiled, nodding, and Maggie felt a sharp, hard pain, one that had nothing to do with her injuries. She thought of that last morning with Alex, of the way they had held each other, their foreheads pressed together as they trembled, lungs still heaving, skin to sweat-slick skin. Thought of Alex’s arms, her eyes, her smile. Of what she would give to have just one minute with her again.

“And yours?” Eliza asked, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “What does it say?”

“’Marry me,’” Maggie breathed, the love and hope and pain tangled up in those two words opening a floodgate. She tasted salt against her lips, and it was only then that she realized that tears were streaming down her cheeks. “Mine says ‘Marry me.’”

Eliza’s hand clenched around the rings, but she didn’t say anything; simply sat there, her other hand squeezing Maggie’s arm, and waited for the grief to work its way out in slow, steady waves. When it was done, Eliza looped the chain over her head, saying, “No more for now. It’s time to let you rest.”

“No, I need to get back to work,” Maggie said, and tried, without much success, to push herself upright. “J’onn and Kara should be back soon, and —“

Morphine slid into her veins — not a little, but a lot — and Maggie felt her eyes roll back in her head, her body sinking back into the mattress. She fought through the haze long enough to look over at Eliza, who was watching her, a slight smile playing over her lips. Eliza’s thumb, Maggie realized, was pressed hard into the plunger controlling her pain meds. 

“That was such a mom move,” she mumbled, her eyes drifting shut. It was also the sort of thing Alex would do, but saying that suddenly seemed like far too much work. 

“That’s my job now.” Maggie heard the chair creak, a soft shuffle of footsteps, and then Eliza was leaning forward, her lips touching Maggie’s forehead in a gentle kiss.

“Darling Maggie,” Eliza said, and pressed her hand to Maggie’s forehead. “Rest now.”

And for the first time in a long time, under a mother’s watchful eye, Maggie did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: Unorthodox Kryptonian medical procedures.
> 
> PS Told you no canon lesbians would die in the making of this fic.
> 
> For the full series readers who asked what was inscribed on their rings in [The Endless Unknown](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13853724) \- now you know.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara deals with the aftermath of Maggie's shooting, and Lena pays the price. 
> 
> Bonus points if you catch the _Man of Steel_ reference. #Ilikeditwhatever
> 
> Roadie made this better. She makes everything better.

“How’s Maggie?” James asked. 

Kara looked up from her computer screen, pushing her glasses tight against the bridge of her nose. “Winn told you?” 

James sat down in the chair next to her desk and loosened his dark blue tie. He’d been dressing up a little more when he came to the office lately, and Kara suspected it had something to do with the very attractive new second-in-command in the legal department. “Winn texted me last night when you brought her in. Said it looked pretty bad.”

“It was rough.” Kara had been trying to distract herself with work all morning, but her thoughts kept straying back to the memory of having to burn through Maggie’s flesh before the bleeding in her leg killed her. A few years back, Clark had been forced to do the same thing to save Lois’s life. Kara wondered if Lois had been in as much pain as Maggie, or if her heart had nearly stopped from shock like Maggie’s almost had. 

“But she’s doing okay now,” Kara said, trying to put her usual bright spin on her words. “Eliza’s with her.”

“And what about you?” James asked, looking over at her in that way he had, as if he could sense her thoughts. “Are you okay?”

“I’m…” Kara trailed off, her mind once again replaying Maggie’s desperate words when she thought she was about to die: _Tell Alex._ Her lips had been blue, her body shaking. And the smell of her burning flesh…

Cat’s voice, demanding and imperious, cut across her senses, dragging her away from the horror of that darkened clearing. “Keira!”

“Well that doesn’t sound good.” Kara looked across the newsroom to Cat’s office, but her boss was nowhere to be seen. “I’d better get over there.”

“I’ll go with you.” James got to his feet, gesturing for Kara to precede him. “I need to talk to her about next month’s cover anyway.” 

“Thanks,” Kara said, and then added, only half-joking, “You might want to put on your armor.”

Kara had expected that by the time she crossed the newsroom, Cat would be standing in the doorway to her office, glaring at her. Instead, she found her mentor staring at the TV array behind her desk, one hand on her hip while her glasses dangled from the other. Cat turned on one Jimmy Choo-clad heel, fiddling with the gold necklace that adorned her cream-colored cashmere sweater, and glanced at James with a look of cool appraisal. “No need to bring reinforcements, Keira. I was simply wondering if you knew what was happening a few blocks over.” 

Cat pointed at the central monitor, which showed an aerial view of downtown National City, with a focus on the entrance to the L-Corp building. The three black SUVs parked in front of it looked a lot like the vehicles the DEO used when it pretended to be FBI. An instant later, the camera cut to a woman in black pants and a blazer walking out of the building’s revolving door. She was bringing a second woman, this one wearing a wine-colored silk blouse and thigh-length gray skirt, out in handcuffs.

The woman in black was Vasquez.

The woman in handcuffs was Lena.

“What the hell?” Kara blurted out, and saw Cat glance over to her with that odd mix of jadedness and curiosity that said she smelled a story, but it did not yet seem worth investigating.

“That poor girl gets arrested more often than I go to Paris,” Cat said, and then added, as an afterthought, “which reminds me, I must have Miss Teschmacher book my tickets for the day after Thanksgiving.” 

“Are they saying why Lena is being arrested?” James asked, adding a “Calm down” under his breath. 

Kara realized then that her fists were clenched and her feet weren’t quite touching the carpet. She made a conscious effort to relax, easing her body downward until she made solid contact with the floor. But it was hard to keep herself there when her every instinct was screaming that she needed to get to the DEO as fast as possible. 

“The reason for Ms. Luthor’s arrest is as much of a mystery as why she thinks a designer cocktail dress is proper corporate daywear.” Cat tilted her head to the side, her gaze honing in on Kara with laser-like precision. “I know you and Lena are brunch buddies, Keira. Do you have any insights into why the prodigal daughter is being hauled away by a very formidable cadre of federal agents?”

“No idea,” Kara said, though an ugly thought was taking root — that it might have something to do with Lena providing the information that led Maggie to the mountain road where she had nearly been assassinated. But it didn’t make any sense that the DEO would take Lena into custody when there was, to Kara’s knowledge, absolutely no evidence that it had been a set-up.

“I think it might be nice if someone from CatCo got over there and found out what happened, don’t you?” Cat settled on the couch, straightening her black skirt with military precision. She fixed her eyes on Kara, her gaze more than a little taunting. “You know you won’t be able to stay away anyway, so you might as well be useful while you’re at it.”

“Yes, Ms. Grant,” Kara said, grateful that for once, she didn’t have to come up with a lame excuse for escaping CatCo. She mouthed a quick, “I’ll text you,” at James and headed toward the stairwell, giving it a quick once-over with her x-ray vision before tearing open her shirt. She was on the roof in Supergirl garb in under five seconds, and standing in front of J’onn in the DEO command center within thirty. “Why wasn’t I told that Lena was being arrested?”

“Supergirl,” J’onn said, his jaw clenched, as if he’d been dreading this exact reaction. “I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to tell you. The decision to bring Ms. Luthor into custody…”

“Was mine,” said a familiar voice.

Kara turned, eyes widening. “Lucy?”

“None other,” said Lucy Lane. She was in DEO black, and her shoulder-length hair was, as usual, just a bit wilder than military protocol allowed. Her posture, however, was ramrod straight as she marched over to Kara. “Good to see you, Supergirl.”

“I’d say the same if I knew what was going on,” Kara said, frustration giving her words a blunt edge. “Lucy, why are you locking up my friend?”

“Your friend who almost got our NCPD liaison killed last night, you mean?” Lucy planted her hands on her hips, fixing Kara with that same know-it-all glare that had been the bane of her existence when they’d worked together at the desert base. “Call me crazy, but leading Detective Sawyer into a trap seems like a sufficient reason to take her into custody.”

“Okay,” Kara said. “You’re crazy.”

Lucy rolled her eyes. J’onn just gave her a pained look.

“Why is she here?” Kara asked, directing the question to J’onn, and heard Lucy grind her teeth in frustration. At any another time, Kara might have enjoyed needling her, but right now she was too mad to care. 

“Lucy is here because if, as it appears, Alex is being held in the mansion that Maggie was observing last night, then we will need additional help in mounting a rescue operation. And that means we need someone who can be objective.” J’onn stepped closer to Kara and placed a hand on her shoulder, his eyes conveying both fatherly concern and a hint of warning: _Don’t push this too far, Kid._ “Maggie is better than any of us at stepping back from her emotions and making tactically sound decisions. With her out of the loop for a bit, we need someone who can take on that role.”

“So you give it to Lucy, and her first ‘objective’ act is to arrest the person who led us to the house where Alex is most likely being held captive?” Kara rounded on Lucy and resisted the urge — the very strong urge — to scorch the ground at her feet. “That house’s walls are lined with lead and kryptonite, plus it has a dampening field that prevents J’onn from using his powers. Do you really think Lillian did that because she was bored and needed a new hobby?”

“She might have done that for any number of reasons, including that she’s just incredibly paranoid. We are dealing with Lillian Luthor, after all.” One of the agents on duty walked up to Lucy and murmured in her ear, and Lucy turned her head to the side, nodding, as if trying to pretend that Kara didn’t know she’d just been told that Vasquez was on her way up. 

Lucy looked back at Kara then, her mouth set in a firm line. “If Ms. Luthor can convince me she wasn’t involved, then she has nothing to worry about,” she said, though her flat, clipped tone said it would take a mountain of evidence to change her mind. 

Just then the elevator doors opened. Vasquez walked out, guiding a still-handcuffed Lena in front of her. Lena looked defiant; proud and unafraid, and every inch the power player Kara knew her to be.

Or at least she did until her eyes met Kara’s. Then she stumbled a little.

“Supergirl,” she said, and Kara heard her breathing quicken. “What’s happened to Maggie?”

“Detective Sawyer is recovering from an attack on her life.” Lucy walked over to Lena and stood directly in front of her, jutting her chin up in a classic Lucy intimidation tactic. “And the reason you’re here is because your mother’s goon squad tried to murder her.”

Lena was, Kara saw, deeply shaken by the news, though she managed to keep her usual iron grip on her emotions. But Kara could hear her heart racing as she said, in what was a remarkably measured voice, “I’m glad to hear that Maggie is recovering. However, I think I’ve made it more than clear over the last year that my mother’s activities are none of my concern. In fact, I’ve done my best to undo the damage she’s inflicted on this city and the planet.”

“She has,” Kara said, crossing her arms over her chest. She looked over at Lena, projecting as much reassurance as she could. “I’m so sorry about this, Ms. Luthor. We’ll get it straightened out soon, I promise.”

“ _We_ won’t be doing anything.” Lucy glared at Kara, her jaw tightening, and then turned toward Lena, squaring her shoulders. “I’m Major Lucy Lane, Ms. Luthor. And until further notice, you are a guest of the DEO.” 

Lena’s eyes flashed with anger at that, and she stretched up to her full height, her chin tilting upward at a haughty angle. “Oh, of course. You’re Lois’s younger sister. So how much of this about what happened to Maggie, and how much is you assuming the worst because I’m a Luthor?”

“It pretty much evens out.” Lucy looked past Lena to Vasquez, who had been waiting patiently for instructions this entire time. “Put her in containment three. I’ll be there in a bit.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Vasquez’s gaze flicked to Kara, just for an instant, an apology in her eyes. Then she turned, guiding Lena away with her usual efficient professionalism. 

Kara listened to Lena’s high heels click against the concrete flooring, each tap taking her further away. She imagined using her super speed to chase after Lena; imagined picking her up in her arms and whisking her out of the DEO before anyone, even J’onn, could react. They could be at the coast in seconds and to Hawaii, maybe as far as Bali, mere minutes after that. With Lena’s resources, she could live in peace and comfort for the rest of her days without anyone knowing where she was.

But Lena wouldn’t want that, Kara realized. Lena had worked far too hard to be seen as something other than her name to want to live that life. 

She felt alone and frightened, and desperate for someone to help guide her through this mess. But Alex was locked up in that mansion, and Maggie was in the medbay sleeping, and J’onn — well, J’onn seemed convinced that taking a back seat to Lucy on this was necessary, for reasons that Kara didn’t quite understand. Which meant fixing this was up to her.

“Why are we locking up someone who helps us?” she asked. “Shouldn’t we be thanking her instead?”

“Are all Kryptonians blinded by personal loyalty, or is that just something that runs in your family?” Lucy sneered.

Kara had heard her parents talking, in the last, frantic moments before she left Krypton, about how Jor-El had been murdered by Zod’s blade. About how her uncle had curled into himself, dying, while her Aunt Lara watched and Kal’s ship lifted toward the sky. 

Lucy’s words felt like that; the blade driving in, hooking beneath her ribs, tearing her vital organs apart. They made her want to fight, to tear everything within sight apart in one burst of frantic, kinetic action. She swallowed it down; she would never know, precisely, how she managed to keep it from spilling out. 

But Lucy, who had some experience of Kryptonians, after all, must have seen how close she came to the edge. She leaned in close, quietly murmuring, “I’m sorry, Kara. That was a low blow.”

“It was,” Kara said, channeling all her anger into the fists clenched at her sides. She was fairly sure she could tear a hole in the world right now, if given the slightest provocation.

Only that wouldn’t help Lena. And it wouldn’t help Alex either.

“I need you to stop thinking with your heart,” Lucy said, and for the first time since she had arrived, Kara heard a hint of kindness in her tone. “Be smart, or we won’t ever get Alex back.” 

There was logic in what Lucy had to say, and if the circumstances had been different, Kara might have accepted Lucy’s apology. But the stakes were too high, and she simply wasn’t ready to let go of her anger. 

“If you want me to believe that Lena is involved in this, then strap Lena to that polygraph of yours and prove it, or ask J’onn to read her mind.” Kara looked over at J’onn, who was standing to one side, his gaze flicking between them like he was debating who was more likely to win this contest of wills. “I know you picked something up when Lena came in. So what was it?”

“Nothing but confusion and concern,” J’onn said, and Kara felt a wave of relief at that — not because she thought for one second that Lucy’s charges might be true, but because, finally, someone else was pushing back against her heavy-handed tactics. “It’s possible that Lena may indeed be an innocent bystander in this.” 

“Then explain to me how Lillian’s people knew that Detective Sawyer would be doing surveillance in that exact spot at that specific time.” Lucy looked at Kara again, a challenge in her eyes. “Until then, Lena stays in holding.” 

“Fine,” Kara said, and stalked over to Winn’s computer terminal. He had been typing this whole time, but Kara knew that somewhere on his hard drive there was a Word doc filled with nonsense letters. It was his favorite way to listen in to what others were saying without them realizing that he was doing so.

“Tell me you have something that will shut her up,” Kara murmured.

“Not much.” Winn scrunched up his face like he’d just bitten into a lemon, which was his way of showing that he was frustrated as hell. “I hacked into Lena’s phone records and it didn’t show any calls other than the one she made to Maggie last night. But she could have gotten in touch with her mother by some other means.” 

“Emails? DMs?” They were Lena’s favorite form of electronic communication, though she didn’t use them often. A lifetime of being hounded had taught her that the only safe form of communication was face-to-face — and then, only when she knew the room had recently been swept for bugs. 

“Checking them all.” Winn’s fingers danced over his keyboard as he set the search in motion. He leaned back, waiting for the results to pop up on his screen. “So if Lena didn’t set Maggie up, was it just a coincidence that Lillian’s guys found her? Or did someone else point them to her?”

“Who else is there?” Kara asked. “Maggie hasn’t had contact with anyone else that might conceivably be working with Lillian, except…”

She trailed off as the answer hit her; or more accurately, slammed into her like she’d just taken a gut punch from Clark. “Oh. Oh Rao.” 

“Kara?” Winn was instantly in worry mode; brow furrowed, eyes squinted together. “What’s wrong?”

“I have to go check on something.” Kara was moving before Winn could say any more. Three steps and she was off, over the steps and past the balcony. She was high over the city before she even heard Lucy call after her, and by then she had nearly reached her destination. 

When Lillian’s mansion came into view, Kara felt a tightening in her chest, like a hand squeezing her heart. Alex was somewhere inside those garish white walls; inside, and completely out of Kara’s reach. She tensed her jaw and veered left, aiming for the clearing where what remained of Maggie’s car sat abandoned. Kara touched down on the blood-soaked grass, nearly gagging on the coppery scent of blood. It overwhelmed everything, even the oil leaking from the shattered car. 

_Tell Alex,_ she heard again, over the wind sighing through the pines. _Tell her._

Kara shook it off and scanned the car, searching for anything that might seem strange. She found it high on the inside of the back passenger side wheel well: A transmitter, similar in style to ones that Kara knew the DEO used to track suspects. She wasn’t sure how it had been missed by the detection scans that were run on every vehicle that entered the DEO parking structure, but that was Winn’s worry. The more pressing question was how it had gotten there in the first place, and Kara was fairly sure she knew the answer there.

Jeremiah had put it there when he met with Maggie at Dollywood.

The DEO lab soon confirmed her suspicions, finding both a partial thumbprint and DNA that belonged to Jeremiah Danvers. “Told you,” she said when Lucy, J’onn, and Winn came upstairs to hear the news. “Also, why did you just let this evidence sit out there? Lillian could have stolen it.”

“Because roaring in there with a full team would have drawn attention,” Lucy snapped, sounding more than a little irritated that Kara had, in fact, managed to prove her wrong. “I’ve had one of our satellites trained on the location for hours, and there’s been no activity in the area other than your comings and goings. So apparently, Lillian believes that Maggie is dead or at least off the board, which could, potentially, be used to our advantage.”

“But in the meantime…” J’onn said, and flashed them each a look that made it clear he wanted their sniping to end. “We now know Jeremiah is working actively against us, at least some of the time.”

“Some of the time?” Lucy scoffed. “He’s a traitor, J’onn. Of course he’s working against us.”

“Except M’gann said he’s got, like…a split personality, right?” Winn scratched at his chin, frowning. “So that could explain why he’s warning Maggie that she’s in danger one minute and putting a tracker on her car the next.”

“It’s possible.” J’onn crossed his arms in front of him, his expression stoic as always. But Kara saw fear in his eyes. “If Jeremiah literally is of two minds, then he can be either an asset or a hindrance to our cause. Unfortunately, we can’t be certain which he is at any given moment in time. And I fear what that may mean for Alex.”

Kara felt a flood of images run through her mind then, each one more nightmarish than the last: Alex strapped to a table, blood being drawn from one arm while chemicals were pumped into the other. Alex burning with fever, screaming in pain. Alex dying or dead.

_Alex standing in an alley with a heart made of kryptonite, a sword in her hand._

“I think you’ve proven that Lena is not responsible for what happened to Maggie,” J’onn said, and Kara sensed that he knew that in this moment, her mind wasn’t on Lena at all. “Would you like to do the honors and set her free?”

And Kara realized what he was offering her then; a chance to free Lena, because she couldn’t free Alex. To experience, if just for a few fleeting seconds, the joy of knowing that she had helped a person she loved. 

“I would, thank you.” Kara didn’t even bother to look at Lucy when she swept past, her tread steady and measured as she made her way to the detention area. She nodded at Demos, who was on duty at the guard station, then walked toward the lone containment cell in use.

Lena was pacing barefoot behind the thick glass, her four-inch heels — Louboutins, Kara noted, because Cat had trained her to notice such things — discarded in the corner. She looked tired and beaten down, and all Kara wanted to do was give her a hug and tell her everything was going to be okay. But she couldn’t do that, so she settled for saying, “Ms. Luthor, I’m so sorry for the misunderstanding. You’re free to go.”

Kara punched in the code to open the cell, but it simply beeped at her. She looked over at Demos, her mouth set in a hard line, and said, “Could you please call Major Lane and ask her to provide the authorization code for Ms. Luthor’s release?”

Demos nodded and spoke into his comm, his voice so low that even Kara had trouble hearing it. Or maybe she was just distracted as she stepped closer to the glass; so close that she and Lena were only inches apart. Even with the separation, she could still hear Lena’s blood rushing through her veins, and she could still catch the scent of her floral perfume — something custom-made in Grasse, Lena had once bashfully admitted when she’d had a tad too much wine. “The perfumier called it _La Lenascence_ ,” she’d said, and for some reason, the way she said it had made Kara laugh until she cried.

“I didn’t know they were going to do this. I’m sorry,” Kara said, pressing her fingertips to the glass.

“It’s all right.” Lena drew so close that they were standing mere inches away from each other, her mouth in such close proximity that Kara could see tiny droplets of condensation with every exhale. “Considering what my mother has done, it’s hard to give me the benefit of the doubt.”

“You are not your mother!” Kara exclaimed, and saw Demos lift his head in alarm. She gestured that everything was fine, then said, in a far softer voice, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to shout. I’m just tired of you constantly being judged by your last name. It’s not fair.”

“The sins of the mother,” Lena replied, and then added with a rueful chuckle, “though in my case I guess it’s the sins of the father and brother as well.” She looked at Kara, sorrow in those sparkling green eyes, and asked, “How is Maggie, really?”

“It was close. If I hadn’t been able to get her here…” Kara left the rest of it to Lena’s imagination, not wanting to burden her with the ugly details. “You didn’t have anything to do with it.” 

“No, but my mother did, and I have to carry that.” Lena pressed her forehead against the glass, so close to Kara’s hand that with the slightest push, she could reach through and touch that delicate skin. “I will always have to carry that.”

There was a click, and then a sudden hiss, and the containment cell door popped open. Lena took a sudden step back, her eyes widening, and let out a relieved breath, blinking several times before leaning down to retrieve her shoes. She braced her hand on the edge of the cell door while she pulled on first one, then the other, and smoothed her hands down the front of her gray skirt. Then she straightened her shoulders and said, with a hint of her usual confidence, “Please thank your friends at the DEO for their hospitality.”

“I’ll walk out with you,” Kara offered, aching with the urge to step forward and pull Lena into her arms. It was the worst kind of craving: constant and obsessive, yet promising bliss so long as she gave in.

“I think I can manage on my own,” Lena said, with a gentle shake of her head. She walked halfway to the door, then turned, softly saying, “If you see Maggie, please tell her I hope she’s feeling better soon, and that I’m very sorry about what my mother did to her. And if you see Kara, tell her…” She dropped her eyes, considering, and then looked back with so much kindness in her gaze. “Tell her my offer to help in any way I can is always open.”

“I’ll do that.” Kara took a step toward Lena, then another, holding out her hand. “Lena, I…”

“It’s okay,” Lena said, and then smiled. “You stay safe out there, Supergirl.”

Kara nodded, and simply watched, heart aching, as Lena, with Demos as her guide, disappeared into the corridor. She listened to those high heels fade away, and wondered once again if she and Lena would always be on opposite sides of a cell door. 

She heard the elevator door open and Lena get on, the doors closing again. Heard the steady thump of Lena’s heartbeat start to speed away from her. Heard the tears that Lena allowed herself to cry, now that the crisis was over. 

“I’m sorry,” she said, and then straightened, squaring her jaw. 

There was one way to protect Lena: catch Lillian and rescue Alex. 

Kara needed to find a way inside that monstrosity of a mansion, and she needed to do it now. 

She had a sister to save.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maggie rests, and the Superfriends gather.
> 
> No end notes on this one, unless you're afraid of lemongrass soup.

_Maggie,_ a soft voice whispered. A delicate fingertip traced across the back of her ear, down her neck, circled the hollow of her throat. She felt a whisper of breath against her cheek, a palm press over her heart. Then that voice again, low and intimate. _Babe, wake up._

Maggie jerked awake, grasping at Alex’s side of the bed. But she wasn’t in their bed; instead of silky-smooth 800-thread count sheets that smelled like home, she was lying on thin, scratchy cotton that reeked of chlorine bleach.

And Alex wasn’t there. 

Maggie rolled onto her back, staring up at the ceiling of the small, darkened room deep in the recesses of the DEO. She had been moved there now that she didn’t need constant monitoring, and she was grateful for the change of scenery; not only did the medbay make her feel like she was on constant display, but it held far too many memories of Alex. This quiet, plain space with gray walls and minimal furniture may not have been home, but it was a safe haven. And Maggie really needed one of those right now. 

She’d spent the last twenty-four hours alternating between sleep, the minimal exercise she was allowed to do, and zoning out in front of the big screen TV that was the room’s sole luxury. Re-watching _The X-Files_ wasn’t high on her priority list right now, but she knew if she had any chance of being part of Alex’s rescue, she needed rest, and lots of it. Plus, she needed to think through this case from a fresh angle; so many things simply weren’t adding up, and she knew from experience that the best way to bust through that block was to let her subconscious work on it while she occupied the rest of her mind with less taxing activities. So if Scully and Mulder could help her figure out what Lillian and Jeremiah were up to, either separately or together, then her eighty-seventh rewatch of “Clive Bruckman’s Final Repose” was more than worth the time. 

But it was so hard to settle. She inventoried her aches and bruises, wondering if she could hold out a bit longer before reaching for her next painkiller. She decided to chance it, though a slow, shuffling walk — first to the bathroom, then to the mini-fridge in the corner to retrieve a yogurt — was a bracing dose of reality. Her leg was reminding her in no uncertain terms that she had been shot and subsequently heat-visioned by a Kryptonian, and the bruises from the bullets her vest had caught felt like she’d taken two swift kicks from a horse. But those were just the featured attractions; she was sore in other places too numerous to count from being bounced around inside her cruiser on its sideways slide into a tree. And the rest of her, well, the rest of her simply ached — not for any specific reason, but for the simple fact that she’d been pushing her body too far for too long. 

She hobbled back to bed, crawled under the covers, and took her damn pill.

She spent the next hour in a hazy mix of half-heard snatches of _X-Files_ dialogue and a sepia-toned dream in which she and Alex were chasing a chupacabra through a shopping mall. Maggie’s heart was thrumming at the sight of watching Alex slide down an escalator railing, guns blazing, when a tentative knock pulled her back to wakefulness. She fumbled for the remote, cutting off an alien conspiracy rant that sounded uncomfortably close to the kind of shit that Lillian Luthor spouted, and pushed herself into a sitting position. “Come in.”

“Hey,” Winn said, peeking his head through the door. “You, uh…decent?”

“Close enough,” Maggie said, with a glance down at the rumpled DEO t-shirt and sweats she’d been living in for the last day. “What’s up?”

“Dr. D asked me to check on you. And also…” Winn pushed open the door and began to wheel in a whiteboard, its width easily twice that of what she used to break cases at the station. “J’onn said you might want this.” 

“Finally.” Maggie sat up straighter, drawing in a careful breath when her ribs protested the movement. “He didn’t happen to send any pictures, did he?”

“Once he told me you wanted to do this old school, I took the liberty of printing out anything that seemed relevant.” Winn ducked back into the hallway and retrieved a file folder brimming with pictures and reports. “You need anything else?”

“Nah, I’m good,” Maggie replied, mustering a tired smile. “Thanks, Winn.” 

Winn nodded, his eyes dropping toward the floor in that way he had, as if he was scared to meet her gaze. He started toward the door, then stutter-stepped, his words coming out in a rush. “Look, I know I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but when Kara brought you in it looked really bad. So I just want you to know that I’m glad you made it through okay.”

“That’s...um…really sweet, thanks,” Maggie said, and this time it was her turn to drop her eyes, unsure how to deal with the way their friendship had moved beyond casual, sibling-like joking to something that felt a lot more like actual siblings. Winn was almost out the door before she gathered herself together enough to say, “Hold up, will you?”

Winn turned, cocking his head to the side. “You need something before I go?”

“I…” Maggie hesitated, not sure how to say that she needed company, not just because it would help to bounce the case materials off someone else, but because she was feeling lonely and afraid. But the words _I need you to talk to me because I almost died and I’m trying not to flip the fuck out_ seemed a little much, so she settled for, “I mean, do you want to help me with this?”

“Sure! It’ll be fun. I…um…” Winn's gaze was equal parts furtive and hopeful, like a puppy caught chewing the furniture. “I mean, not fun, but…you know what I mean.”

Maggie felt one corner of her mouth tip upward, the warmth of her affection for Winn’s boyish charm easing, for one brief instant, the ache of Alex’s absence. “It’s cool. Just give me a minute to sort through this stuff, and then we can get started.”

“I’ll run get my tablet so we can access the mainframe if we need to and…maybe some coffee?” Winn waited for Maggie’s nod, then scampered off, leaving her alone with the file folder and her thoughts. 

She started by sorting through the photos of the principals in the case. Bile rose in her throat as she took in Lillian’s cold, venomous stare, so fixed and imperious even in her NCPD mug shot. Jeremiah’s picture was just as hard to look at, though her feelings there were muted by sorrow for Alex and Eliza and Kara, who deserved so much better than to have their father and husband return as a twisted, violent shell of himself. But her heart lurched the hardest at the image of Alex she found deep in the pile: The 5x7 glossy not the ID badge photo she’d expected, but a candid image that had been cropped out of a group photo they’d taken during game night back in September. 

“Oh, yeah, that,” Winn said when he returned with a coffee mug in each hand and his tablet tucked under his arm. “I just wanted to see her smile.”

“I miss it,” Maggie said, tracing her fingertip over Alex’s mouth. Her grin was mischievous, her eyes sparkling; as Maggie recalled, she’d beaten them all handily at _Risk_ , working outward from her starting point on the central steppes of Asia until she’d swallowed up the whole of the Eastern hemisphere. Maggie had given up her foothold in Australia early, watching in bemusement while Kara and Alex fought out their own version of the Cold War until Kara had shouted, “You’re worse than one of those troll bots on Twitter!” and conceded North America in a fit of pique.

“I couldn’t even keep Argentina,” Winn lamented now.

Maggie chuckled at his tone. “Next time, we’ll team up and beat the Danvers sisters at their own game,” she said, and watched Winn turn sad eyes on her. 

“Yeah,” Winn said. “Next time.” 

Maggie looked up at him, hearing the mix of longing and fear — that there would be a next time, that they could somehow find a way to heal the family that they, the two orphans in the bunch, had worked so hard to make their own. 

Winn nodded, both hope and determination in his gaze, and then pulled a marker and some tape out of the front pocket of his crisp blue button-down shirt. “So where do we start?”

“With the head of the snake,” Maggie said, and handed him Lillian’s picture. 

Winn pasted it at the top center of the whiteboard, listing every fact they knew beneath it. There weren’t many; while Lillian had carefully orchestrated Alex’s capture, they couldn’t confirm her role in many of its key elements, including the warehouse, the lead-lined, soundproofed trucks, or the mansion where Alex was being held. The only verifiable fact was that Lillian had sanctioned the attempt on Maggie’s life — and Maggie only knew that because she’d heard Lillian’s voice on the shooter’s radio. 

And suddenly, the shooter’s caustic _“Nothing personal”_ was echoing in her ears, and she was back in the car, the acrid scent of gunpowder burning in her throat while blood, hot and thick, poured out beneath her trembling hands. 

She let out a gasp, and Winn turned toward her, and this time his puppydog eyes were full of panicked worry. “Maggie?”

“It’s nothing,” she said, and handed him Jeremiah’s picture. She took slow, deep breaths while he pasted it to the whiteboard, using her senses to anchor herself back in the present: the warmth of the coffee in her hands, the clean, spicy scent of Winn’s aftershave, the softness of the pillow beneath her. And the image of Jeremiah, the wild card in all this. 

“With Dad Dr. D we have the photo, the ring, and the warning about your attack,” Winn said, using a black dry-erase marker to write down each detail. “And the tracker with his fingerprints on it, of course.” He looked over at Maggie, asking, “I’m sorry. Did you know that’s how Lillian’s people found you?”

“No, but it makes sense,” Maggie said, wishing she could feel surprised that Jeremiah had laid a trap for her. But then again, he had warned her about it too, so maybe some part of him was still trying to be the man that Alex worshipped.

She hoped that was the case. For Alex’s sake, she hoped it so much.

“We couldn’t retrieve any data from the tracker because it got banged around so much in the crash, but…” There was a rap on the door, and Winn trailed off and walked over to it, easing it open and peering outside. “Oh, thank God, I’m starving,” he exclaimed, and then swung it open wide.

James walked in, a box full of Noonan’s bags in his arms. He set the box on the bedside table and leaned down, pressing a kiss to the top of Maggie’s head. “Hey, Maggie. Glad you’re feeling better.”

“Pretty much anything is an upgrade from where I was.” Maggie squeezed his arm, quietly saying, “Should have had you watching my back.”

James looked down at her, and in his eyes, she saw the memory of all those hours when it was just the two of them on the streets, fighting off the Daxamite horde. He nodded once and said, “I’ve always got you. You know that.”

And again Maggie had that feeling, like a family she hadn’t even known was there had coalesced around her. She glanced over at the food, hoping it would distract her from the sudden tightness in her throat. “You planning on feeding the entire DEO?”

James chuckled. “Not quite. I wasn’t sure what you’d be up to eating, so I brought a few options. I figured between Winn and Kara we’d finish off the rest.” 

He handed over a plastic container then, and Maggie lifted the lid, detecting the scent of the lemongrass noodle soup that she ordered when she was sick, hung over, or on her period. “Good guess,” she said, and James just smiled and handed her a spoon. He then laid two salad options — Santa Fe and Greek — on the bed. 

Winn wandered over, nosing around in the bags. “Did you…”

“Of course.” James freed a carton from one of the bags. “Deluxe burger and fries with extra pickles and no tomato.”

“My man.” Winn gave James a fist bump and then popped open the carton. “Maggie?” he asked after three quick bites. “Who’s next?”

Maggie reluctantly handed over two pictures. “Alex,” she said, her breath catching as she added, “Both of them.”

Winn set aside his burger, his gaze turning solemn. He wiped his hands on a napkin and then took both photos, placing them on the board just below and to the right of Lillian’s image. For a moment they all stared, caught up in the sickening contrast between Alex’s happy, smiling face in the first photo and the shackled, hooded figure in the second image. 

“Why her?” Maggie asked, though it was hard to stay analytical when faced with this stark reminder of the hellish conditions Alex was enduring. It was there in how every line of her body was taut as a bow, as if doing its best to arch away from unspeakable pain, and it was there in the ring, once coated in blood, that now lay on the bedside table next to Maggie’s painkillers. Yet the investigator in Maggie couldn’t help but feel some relief when she looked at that picture, because Lillian wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble if she didn’t find Alex useful. 

And if Alex was useful, then Alex was still alive.

“She’s high up in the DEO,” Winn said in answer to Maggie’s question. He cocked an eyebrow at Maggie expectantly, and Maggie nodded, indicating that he should write that down. 

“And the virus thing Dr. D mentioned. Argo fever, right?” James drew a sandwich carton out of the food box and cracked it open, then glanced around in search of a place to sit. Maggie just squinted at him and scooted over, patting the edge of the bed.

“Yes to putting Argo fever on the board,” Maggie said, taking a careful sip of her soup. Its warmth filled her stomach, then spread outward into her aching muscles, and she took another sip before setting it aside and opening the carton of Greek salad. To Winn, she said, “Plus, Lillian hates Alex for stopping the Exodus ship, and with her, revenge is always a factor. That’s a big part of why she came after me.”

“Lucky for us she had no idea how tough you really are,” James said, handing Maggie a plastic fork. He looked over at the board, his gaze thoughtful. “Which do you think it is? DEO, virus, or revenge?”

“In the end, all three are about one thing, and that’s being in control,” Maggie said, and saw both her friends tense at the words. “Taking Alex wasn’t a crime of opportunity. Lillian planned this for months. This is a woman who puts chips in the heads of her soldiers so that if she needs to, she can kill them in an instant. People are nothing but chess pieces to her, and Alex just happens to be a very valuable one.”

“So you’re saying she’s doing this because of some made up game?” James asked.

“My dad was like that,” Winn said, and Maggie saw the quiet rage that always came to the surface on those rare occasions when Winn brought up his sociopathic father. “All the toys, all the plots — in the end it was just about manipulating people because he could. He liked to make them dance to a tune that only he could hear.”

“Then it’s up to us to turn off the music.” James looked over at Maggie with that steady, determined gaze that she’d come to count on in a fight, and asked, “So how do we do that?”

Just then, the door flew open, and Kara rushed toward the carryout bags at faster-than-human speed. “Is there food? I smell food.”

“Hello to you too,” Maggie said, chuckling. An instant later she was swept up in a bear hug, one that nearly lifted her off the bed. “Please don’t add to the bruises,” she rasped, though she too was holding on as tight as she could.

“Sorry, sorry.” Kara gave her a second, gentler squeeze, then pulled away. “It’s just so good to see you awake. How are you feeling?”

“Like I’m not dead, thanks to you.” The memory of that awful moment when Kara’s only choice had been to inflict unspeakable pain hung thick between them, and Maggie saw Kara’s eyes well with tears. “Hey, come on, none of that,” Maggie said, clutching at her hand. “I’ll be okay.” 

“You sure?” Kara tipped her glasses down to double-check for herself, a frown creasing her forehead. Maggie just waited it out, bemused at the thought that Supergirl performing impromptu x-rays on her was now a part of her daily routine. It was, she thought, so not how she expected her life would go when she first caught feelings for that gorgeous nerd of a DEO agent who kept popping up at her crime scenes.

Kara finished her scan with a satisfied huff and turned her attention to the food bags on the bedside table. “There’s my triple deluxe!” she crowed, then plopped down next to Maggie, popping the carton open. “Hi,” she said, her gaze shifting first to Winn, then to James. “Sorry. It’s just…been a crazy morning.”

“Fallout from Lena’s arrest?” James asked.

Kara, who had managed to stuff roughly a quarter of her burger into her mouth, simply nodded.

“I don’t like that decision,” Maggie said, feeling just as irritated as she had when Eliza informed her about the arrest the previous afternoon. “Lena’s given us our best leads. Why piss her off?”

“It’s kind of how Lucy operates,” James said, with the wry tone of someone who had learned this character trait through hard experience.

“Seriously?” Maggie asked. 

Kara nodded vigorously, while Winn just squinted his eyes and rubbed the back of his neck. 

“When you meet her,” James said, “you’ll understand.”

“She sounds charming,” Maggie said, and Kara let out a not-so-ladylike snort. Maggie elbowed her in the side, nodding toward the food bags. “Be useful and hand me a napkin, will you?”

Kara reached over, dropping a handful on Maggie’s lap, and Maggie took some time to sort through the pictures, trying to determine what should come next. “Let’s move on to locations,” she said after a moment. “Start with the warehouse.”

They ate, and they talked, and they posted pictures on the white board. By the time they finished eating it was almost completely covered, and any space that was left had been taken up by Winn’s messy scrawl. 

Maggie set her half-eaten food aside, her eyes scanning the photos in hopes that something would catch her attention. Eventually, she zeroed in on an image of the mansion where Alex was most likely imprisoned. “Any word on the blueprints?” 

“Lena’s doing an archive search for the plans,” Kara replied as she finished off the last of her fries. “But it’s been slow going with all the distractions.”

“I’m amazed she even wants to help us anymore, after all she’s been put through.” Winn caught Kara eyeing the remains of his meal and handed it over with a resigned sigh. “Especially the perp walk thing.”

“Lena cares about doing what’s right, and about Alex too. She just wants to help.” Kara drew breath to say more, but her phone dinged, and she tugged it out of her pocket and squinted down at the screen. “I have to…” She pointed toward the hallway. “Be right back.”

Maggie watched her go, the words “I bet you that’s Lena” on the tip of her tongue. But the person she most wanted to make that bet with wasn’t here, and a quick glance at the whiteboard, with its image of Alex chained and on her knees, was enough to nearly send her entire lunch back up again. She clenched one fist and took in a breath, trying to hold on to that analytical distance, to not lose herself in the horror of it all. There was an answer here, somewhere, but it seemed just out of reach.

And at least Lena was still on their side. They needed her — not just as a source of information, but because Maggie was fairly sure Lena was the only person keeping Kara together during this long, ugly wait.

There was yet another knock on the door, and Winn rolled his eyes and went to open it. “Kara, you don’t have to knock if you…” He broke off, taking a step back. “Oh hey, Dr. D.”

“Hi, Winn.” Eliza walked inside, taking in the clutter of food cartons and papers covering the bed with the wry exasperation of someone who had raised two teenage girls. “I see you’re following doctor’s orders and resting,” she said to Maggie with a look of motherly disapproval.

“I made the guys do all the work, I swear.” Eliza leaned down, and Maggie wrapped her arms around her shoulders, feeling Eliza’s arms draw tight around her. Softly, she said, “You might not want to look at the board behind you.” 

“Thank you, Sweetheart, but I need to.” Eliza drew away from their embrace and turned to look at the whiteboard, one hand still on Maggie’s wrist. Maggie could tell when she saw the picture of Alex by the way her grip tightened, but she didn’t say anything; simply turned to look at Maggie again with such kindness in her eyes. “It looks like you have everything mapped out.”

“As much as we can, though there's still more questions than answers." Winn glanced over at Eliza, his shoulders hunched, and then turned to Maggie, saying, “It’d really help if we got another text.”

“Speaking of...” Eliza fished a cracked, beat to hell iPhone out of her pocket, and Maggie realized, with a sudden surge of relief, that it was hers — and better yet, that it was still somehow on. “J’onn asked me to bring this to you. They pulled it from your car when they recovered it this morning.” 

“Shit, I thought it was gone for good.” Maggie saw that the phone was dangerously low on power and snapped her fingers. “Winn, I need a charger fast.” 

“On it.” Winn gathered up a handful of empty food cartons and dumped them in the trash on his way toward the door. He nearly collided with Kara, and the two did a clumsy dance before each got past the other. 

“Lena just called. She found the plans to the house,” Kara said, and then walked to Eliza, sweeping her up in a hug. She glanced at Maggie over her adoptive mother’s shoulder, saying, “Oh, good, you got your phone.”

“Finally,” Maggie said and shifted position, gritting her teeth against the pain that flared through her at such a simple movement. She glanced down at her phone, desperate to type in her passcode, but she was afraid if she tried before it was plugged in it would simply die. “When can Lena bring them in?”

“She has a meeting, but after that she’ll bring them over.” Kara’s excitement was palpable, and Maggie thought about cautioning her against getting too far ahead of herself. But this was big news, and Maggie couldn’t help but feel a surge of enthusiasm too, especially when Kara added,” The best part is, Lena thinks she lived there when she was a kid. She’s going to come in and talk us through any details she can remember.”

“That’s great.” Maggie looked down at her phone, the need to see inside it like an itch that needed to be scratched, and finally muttered, “Fuck it,” under her breath. She typed in the passcode — _112816_ — and opened her messages app.

And found five new messages from Jeremiah. 

_Tuesday, 11:05 p.m.: I told you to be careful. You should have listened to me._

_Wednesday, 3:45 a.m.: They think you’re dead. I hope they’re wrong._

_Wednesday, 12:02 p.m.: If you’re still out there, you need to answer me. Things are getting dangerous._

_Today, 4:02 a.m.: I can’t hold them back much longer._

And then finally again today, less than an hour ago:

_Make your move by Saturday or it’ll be too late._

“Oh shit,” Maggie breathed. “Where the hell is Winn?”

“Here, here!” Winn exclaimed as he came through the door, out of breath. He froze when he saw the entire group staring at him. “Wait, what’s wrong? Do I have food in my teeth?”

“Winn,” Maggie said, her voice clipped with urgency. “Did you know about the messages I’ve been getting?”

“No, because I…” Winn’s face fell, the blood draining right out of it. “Because I forgot to set up the alert program that would tell me when new ones came in.”

“Oh, man,” James said softly, and Winn dropped his head into his hands. 

It was the little things that caused a case to fall apart, Maggie thought, though she gritted her teeth and stopped herself from saying it out loud. Instead she held out her phone, saying, “Winn, listen to me. Nothing we can do about it now. What you can do is analyze these as fast as you can, and also tell J’onn I need to speak with him right away.”

James turned, placing a gentle hand on Maggie's shoulder. “What is it?”

She realized then that she was trembling; that Eliza had put a protective arm around her shoulders, that Kara was looking at her with something close to fear in her eyes. She bit the inside of her cheek and took a breath, fighting to get to the calm, quiet place she went to every time she participated in a big op. But it was harder to reach; there was so much pain clouding her mind, and so much panic too.

 _Alex,_ she thought. _Baby, please. Please hold on._

“The game has changed,” she said, and though she was looking at Kara, she was speaking to Supergirl. “We’re on the clock now. And if we don’t go soon, we may lose Alex forever.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara gets an ultimatum, and Lena makes a dangerous choice.
> 
> Please see end notes for content warnings.

_Two days,_ Kara thought. _Two days, and then Alex gets turned into a monster._

She knew it was an assumption, and that here in the CatCo newsroom was where she was supposed to leave assumptions behind. But she couldn’t get past the image of flesh being rent from bone, of implants where nerves and muscle should be. They would make Alex something other than human — something other than _Alex_ — and the mere thought of that filled Kara with terror. She wanted to race to the roof and fly straight to Lillian’s mansion, to smash open its walls and drag her sister free. 

It was a recipe for disaster, of course; even if she could get past the building’s lead and kryptonite-lined walls, there were probably ten other traps waiting for her. Listening to those who counseled patience — J’onn, Maggie, even Lucy — was the wisest course of action. Plus, Lena was doing everything she could to help them, and for that, Kara couldn’t be anything but grateful. 

But she hated waiting. She hated it so much.

A familiar heartbeat approached, and she turned, mustering a smile. “James.”

“Hey, Kara.” James leaned in close. “Any word yet on when it’s going down?”

“When what’s going down?” asked a sharp, far-too-inquisitive voice.

Kara froze, her mouth gaping open, and saw James wince as they both realized that Cat had heard the question. James turned and said, as casually as he could muster, “Oh, hey, Cat. I didn’t see you there.” 

“James, Sweetie, I’m named after an animal that can sneak up on people unawares,” Cat replied in her most withering tone. She fixed her eyes on Kara and tilted her head toward her office. “In here. Both of you. Now.”

Kara trailed behind Cat’s fast-moving stilettos, their clack like the smash of a hammer against her over-sensitive ears. She jerked to a halt as Cat abruptly turned and waved a hand toward the door. “Would one of you close that, please?”

“I’ll get it,” James said, and slid the door shut behind him. He stood with his back to the glass, looking at Kara as if to say, _You figure out how to get us out of this one._

Kara realized then that she needed a lie — a good one — but also one that was close enough to the truth that Cat would buy into it. “Ms. Grant, about what you overheard…” she said, hoping that somewhere in the loaded silence that followed, she would come up with an explanation just reasonable enough that it would get past her boss with three _Hmmms_ max.

But Cat was in no mood for their usual banter. “Don’t try it, Kara,” she said, and Kara realized two things: First, that Cat looked incredibly tired, and second, that this was one of those rare instances where she wasn’t calling her _Keira_. 

And that was bad, wasn’t it? That seemed very world turned upside down, and Kara wasn’t sure she had the brain bandwidth left to deal with the implications. She stuttered out a meek, “I wasn’t…um…” 

She was still trying to figure out how to finish that sentence when James stepped into the breach. “Cat, I know there’s been a lot going on, and I’m sure you’d like to know more. But—”

“But but but.” Cat walked around her desk and dropped into her chair, her hands gliding over the five pairs of glasses arranged in a neat row at the edge of the blotter. She chose her favorite, the red square-cut Prada, and fiddled with them for a moment before dropping them and clasping her hands neatly in front of her. When she looked up at Kara, there was fury in her eyes. “I got a call from a highly placed source at the NCPD this morning.”

 _Oh, no,_ Kara thought. She had her suspicions about what the source had told Cat, and by extension, why Cat was now on the warpath. 

And she was right.

“Did you think, Keira, that I wouldn’t find out that those Cadmus thugs tried to murder Detective Sawyer two nights ago? Or that the only reason she’s still alive is because Supergirl flew her to some super-secret installation where she could get emergency medical care?” Cat fixed Kara with a glare, and Kara realized, with a sudden queasy twist of her stomach, what it must feel like to be on the other side of her heat vision. “Or are you going to pretend that you, too, weren’t aware?”

“Of course not, Ms. Grant. Maggie’s practically my sister. But…” Kara clasped her hands in front of her and squinted at Cat from behind her glasses. “I mean, we can’t report any of this yet, at least not until Alex is rescued. So I’m not sure why you’re so upset.”

“Because when I told you that all of CatCo’s resources were at your disposal, I meant _all of them,”_ Cat said, spitting out the last three words like daggers aimed straight at Kara’s heart. Cat sat back in her chair and drew in a breath, and for a moment she simply stared toward the balcony. Her voice, when she spoke again, was soft, and almost wounded. “I’m just saying. You could have told me.” 

“Oh,” Kara said, and then glanced over at James, who was looking at her with what might have been the beginnings of a smile on his face. _She’s mad because she cares,_ Kara realized, and walked over to stand on the opposite side of Cat’s desk. She stuffed her hands in her pockets, her chin dropping downward, and looked down at Cat. “Yes, you’re right, Ms. Grant. I could have, and I’m sorry. It’s been…”

“Busy, yes. I’m sure.” Cat gave Kara one of those cool, impenetrable gazes, the sort that made Kara want to look over her shoulder to see if there was someone more interesting standing behind her. Then Cat waved one hand toward the couch. “Just stop with the puppy dog eyes and sit down.”

Kara certainly wasn’t going to argue with that, and so she did as told, James settling in alongside her, and waited at full attention while Cat moved from her desk to the opposite couch. She was expecting questions about Maggie’s condition or the DEO’s investigation, or maybe even a few curveballs about when the rescue might take place.

And then Cat began to speak, and all of Kara’s assumptions flew out the window.

“It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that a rescue attempt is imminent, and I, of course, test well above what it takes your average tenured so-and-so to get into MENSA.” Cat was smug about this, but when she looked over at Kara, she also saw the crafty determination that had landed her mentor atop a major media empire before the age of forty. “And because of this, and also because my first priority is the well-being of the people of National City, I’ve decided that I simply have to be there when it happens.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” James said, while Kara simultaneously blurted, “No, you don’t.”

“Oh, but it is,” Cat said, arching one eyebrow, “and I do.” 

She gave Kara a look then; the same look she'd given Supergirl during the Daxamite invasion, when she had volunteered to put out the emergency broadcast that rallied the people of National City. It was Cat at her bravest and most selfless.

It was also the sort of thing that was likely to get Cat killed. 

“I know you want this story,” James said, in that same soothing tone he used whenever he was trying to get Cat to see reason, “and you’ll get it, I promise. I’ll be there when it goes down, and Kara…”

“Will be on the sidelines watching, of course.” Cat looked over at Kara, her eyes narrowing, and Kara could all but hear the first of those three _Hmmmmms_ reverberating in her ears. But Cat simply clasped her hands over her knees and said, “While I appreciate that two of my highly trained, reasonably well-paid reporters will be in the thick of this fiasco, I doubt either of you can be objective. You, James, because you’ll be doing your Robocop thing, and you, Keira, because you have so much at stake. Which means that if this story is going to be documented in anything resembling an appropriate journalistic style, a neutral third party is required.” 

“But, Ms. Grant…” Kara saw the resistance in Cat’s eyes, but she forged through it, gently saying, “When it comes to this story, I think that you may not actually be neutral.”

Cat gave her a look that was hard to decipher then; she was irritated, without question, but beneath that was the same compassion that Kara sometimes caught glimpses of, more often than not when Cat was conversing with Supergirl. “No, of course not. Even Walter couldn’t keep his personal feelings out of his reporting at times of great crisis.” Cat paused for a moment, and then added, a tinge of acid in her voice, “And don’t even get me started on Lois Lane.”

James chuckled at that, and Kara looked over at him, tilting one shoulder. They talked it out with just their gaze: Would the DEO allow Cat to be present? And more importantly, what would she do if they said no?

James shrugged then, as if to say they might as well bow to the inevitable, and then looked over at Cat. “I’m guessing if we don’t take this to the people in charge, you’ll just show up anyway?”

“Between your recent archive searches and the location where a certain unmarked police cruiser was recovered earlier today, a cub reporter could figure out where this paramilitary assault is about to take place.” Cat looked over at Kara, a ‘got the canary’ smirk on her face. “I’m thinking the CatCo chopper would have a wonderful vantage point just over that hill.”

Kara dropped her head into her hands, quietly muttering, “They’re going to lose their minds over this.” 

“Yes, yes, I’m sure your friends in black will be most displeased.” Cat clapped her hands on her thighs and got to her feet, moving briskly toward her desk. “Tell them I was embedded with the Seventh Cavalry in the Second Battle of Fallujah and lived to tell the tale. In fact, I still exchange Christmas cards with some of the more charming members of the squad.”

“We’ll pass the word along.” James got to his feet. “All we can do is ask, right?”

“Of course,” Kara agreed, though she tried hard not to make it sound too much like a commitment for fear Cat would immediately pull on her designer flak jacket and head for the roof. 

Just then Kara’s phone beeped, and she tugged it out of her pocket, smiling when she saw Lena’s name flash across her screen. Then she read the message. “Oh, no.”

“Keira?” Kara looked up to see Cat once again looking at her like she was worried — and also that she resented the feeling. “Is it bad news?”

“Not exactly. Just…” Kara tilted her head in the direction of the elevator. “Can I…”

“Yes, go ahead,” Cat said with a dismissive wave. She waited until Kara was nearly out the door before adding, “The chopper is on standby. Tick tock.”

Kara paused long enough to nod, then moved swiftly toward the elevators. As soon as she was out of Cat’s sightline she veered into the stairwell, tucking her phone against her ear. “Come on,” she muttered, wishing just once that she could clutch at something with urgency without worrying about it shattering into a million pieces.

“That was fast,” Lena said, her voice tinged with wry amusement.

“It needed a quick response.” Kara began climbing the stairs two at a time, her heart racing not from the exertion, but out of fear over what Lena had just set in motion. “Are you sure about this?”

“No, I’m not, but it seems like the only way to resolve the situation once and for all.” Lena’s voice gentled then; there was such kindness in it, and Kara wondered briefly how she had gotten lucky enough to earn such loyalty not once, but twice in her lifetime. “Besides, it might help with getting Alex back. And I know how much that means to you.”

“I know, but Lena…” Kara paused, softly saying, “They’ll know everything.”

She let the words hang in silence, waiting for Lena to absorb what that meant; what exposing her mind to J’onn, and by extension the DEO, might do to her sense of privacy and safety. To what it might reveal, not just about her, but about those she loved. 

“I’ll just have to risk that.” Lena blew out a breath and laughed, its hollow sound like knife to Kara’s guts. “Maybe I should have them sign an NDA first?”

Kara’s heart broke at the thought of Lena laying literally everything on the line — not just for Alex, but also for her. “I can go with you,” she said as she pushed open the fire door that led to the roof. The clunk of its opening, and then of it slamming itself shut again, echoed across the line.

“No, Kara, it’s okay.” Lena’s voice was stronger now, and Kara imagined her pulling on her own form of breastplate and shield — buttoning her suit jacket, settling her feet into her heels — and then lifting her chin as she marched, brave and tall, toward the door to her office. Yet her next words betrayed the uncertainty that lay beneath her bravado. “I wonder though if you might…if Supergirl might be there.” 

“I’ll ask her,” Kara said. The wind was whipping hard today, and she covered her phone with her hand to block out the noise. “How soon will you arrive?”

“I’m on my way to the car now. I’ll call you when I’m done.” Lena let out a low, rueful chuckle. “If they let me leave, that is.”

“They will,” Kara said, mustering as much reassurance as she could. It seemed inadequate, however, especially when Lena was essentially walking unarmed into a lion’s den. She felt tears sting at her eyes, though not from the wind, and said, “I’ll see you soon.”

“Yes, soon.” Lena hesitated, and for an instant, words as yet unspoken hung between them. Then Lena drew in a quiet breath and simply said, “Goodbye, Kara.”

The call ended before Kara could reply, and she stared down at her phone for a moment, caught between the urge to call back and a desire to fling the damn thing off the roof. She felt an ache building in her chest — one born of frustration, of course, but also fear. What good was all her power, she wondered, if she couldn’t save the people she loved? 

She stripped down to her Super suit and stood on the edge of the precipice, her cape flapping in the breeze. “Rao, give me strength,” she murmured, and then centered her gravity, pushing down with the balls of her feet. An instant later she was shooting straight upward, like an arrow fired toward the sun.

It was pleasant up here; the winds were cool today, the clouds thin, and as the noise of the city fell away, it became easier to think, to breathe, to simply be. Flight beckoned, and she fought the desire to set off in some random direction and see where it took her. But there were too many people counting on her right now to disappear, even for ten minutes.

And besides, she’d made a promise.

She angled her body downward, arcing toward the DEO balcony at full speed. Her arrival at the command center must have seemed like a mere eye blink to the humans around her, though J’onn’s scowl said he had tracked it and that he didn’t entirely approve.

“Ms. Luthor is on her way up now,” he said without preamble. He crossed his arms in front of him, one hand stroking his chin. “And before you say anything, this was not my idea.”

“No, it was hers,” Kara said to Lucy, who was standing alongside J’onn, looking more than a little irritated by Kara’s surprise entrance. “When Lena proves her innocence, will you get off her back?”

“That ‘when’ seems a bit presumptive, but yes.” Lucy pursed her lips, unable to resist adding, “Though I’d much rather hook her up to a lie detector test and watch her fail.”

“Lucy,” Kara said, a hint of warning in her voice, “you might not want to bring that up, considering we are now living through what almost happened the last time you used it.” 

Lucy’s cheeks flushed as she and everyone else within earshot was reminded of that ugly day almost two years ago when J’onn and Alex had been led out in chains. Lucy hadn’t been aware that Lillian had co-opted Cadmus at the time, but that didn’t matter, really — not when she had known full well that she was condemning Alex to life in solitary confinement and J’onn to far worse. 

“That was insensitive,” Lucy said, and then frowned in irritation at the admission. She looked over at J’onn, her mouth drawn in a tight line. “I’ll be observing from outside the interrogation room. Call me if you need me.”

She walked away, and mere seconds later, the elevator dinged and Lena stepped out. There were no handcuffs this time, though Vasquez was once again wearing the somewhat ill-cut black suit she wore for her FBI cover. Lena, meanwhile, had opted for one of her smartest power suits; a dark blue jacket and thigh-high skirt with a low-cut white silk blouse. Her shoes, as usual, were Louboutins, and high enough to bring her to just slightly above Kara’s eye level.

“Director J’onzz,” Lena said, and offered J’onn a firm handshake. “It’s good to see you again.”

“And under much better circumstances.” J’onn gestured toward the interrogation suite. “We can talk over here.”

“Thank you.” Lena turned to follow J’onn, though she hesitated long enough for Kara to fall into step beside her. “Hello, Supergirl.”

“Hello, Ms. Luthor,” Kara said, maintaining her protective stance all the way to the third and largest of the interrogation rooms. It was, like all DEO facilities, utilitarian in the extreme: steel walls, a single metal table, two straight-backed chairs. Sunlight filtered in through the slatted windows, illuminating a dent from when Kara had once slammed Rick Malverne against the back wall. She felt a surge of the same desperate panic that had enveloped her then; once again the clock was moving far too fast, and yet interminably slow. 

_But at least we will soon know what Lena knows,_ she thought as J’onn moved the two chairs so that they were facing each other. She tried not to think about the fact that this might be their last hope; that if Lena’s sacrifice didn’t work, they truly would be flying blind when it came time to rescue Alex.

“Before we begin, may I ask how this will work?” Lena was nervous, and clearly more than a little afraid, but as usual, it only seemed to make her stronger. Still, her hands trembled as she folded them in her lap. “Will you simply scan me, or will I actually feel you inside my mind?” 

“My intention is to use the least intrusive method possible so as to minimize the risk of harm.” J’onn sat down across from Lena, their knees almost touching, and braced his hands on his thighs. “When you called, you said you lived in the house where we believe Alex is being held.”

“Yes. And yet I have no memory of it, which is the most troubling thing of all.” Lena glanced over at Kara, who was standing by the two-way mirror, and then past her, making it clear she knew that Lucy and perhaps others were lurking behind that glass. “I went through old photo albums last night and found a picture of my mother, Lex, and I standing in front of that house when I was around nine years of age, yet I don’t have any recollection of it. And based on the date that picture was taken, it seems I was shipped off to boarding school shortly afterward.”

“Perhaps together, we can find some useful information.” J’onn looked over at Kara, his gaze solemn. “Supergirl, it’s your job to keep an eye on Ms. Luthor for me. If she seems in any physical distress, please tell me so I can withdraw from the bond.” 

“I will.” Kara looked down at Lena. “You’ll be okay, Ms. Luthor. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Thank you, Supergirl.” Lena smiled, and though her mouth was tight and strained, there was gratitude in her green eyes. Then she took a deep breath and looked straight at J’onn. “I’m ready.”

“Very well.” J’onn asked Lena to close her eyes, and for the new few minutes, he guided her through a meditation exercise. Kara watched in fascination as, simply by listening to J’onn’s voice, Lena’s heart rate decreased, her breathing growing slow and even. She was soon deep inside the meditation, for Kara barely saw her heart rate twitch when J’onn said, “Now we’ll begin.”

He lifted his right hand and pressed gentle fingers against Lena’s cheek. Lena shivered like she was fighting off a sudden chill, then went still, her head and chest lifting as though pulled forward by invisible strings.

“That’s it,” J’onn murmured, his voice a low rumble. “Think of the house, Lena. Walk with me, show me what it’s like. Yes. That’s —“ His face, its lines smoothed in concentration, suddenly twisted in pain. “What is…what is this place…”

And just like that, Lena’s heart took off like a rocket ship. Her once-steady breathing was suddenly a rapid, shallow rasp, and she let out a whine, her face tensing as she screamed, “Mother...no!”

Lena and J’onn each froze, and Kara sensed that some massive battle of wills was underway. Then they lurched apart as if repelled by some invisible force. J’onn let out a gasp and clutched at his head, sweat dripping off his forehead. But Kara’s attention was entirely on Lena; Lena, who was lurching sideways while she grasped blindly for the trash can that sat against the far wall. Kara caught her around the waist with one arm, the other holding the can steady while Lena heaved into it over and over again.

“It’s okay,” Kara whispered as Lena trembled against her, her skin clammy and cold as ice. “You’re okay, Lena.”

Lena nodded and spat a final time, then lifted one hand to wipe her chin. “Could I have some water please?” she asked, her voice faint and tinged with embarrassment. “And perhaps…a tissue?”

“Anything you need.” Kara eased Lena back into the chair, making sure she could hold herself upright. Once certain, she quickly went to the door.

Lucy met her outside with a bottle of water in one hand and tissues in the other. She looked like she wanted to say something, and for an instant Kara dared dream it might be an apology. Instead, she cast a single, worried look into the room.

“We’ve got it,” Kara said, and then returned inside. Lena was sitting with her head in her hands, and Kara crouched in front of her, holding out a tissue. J’onn, she noted, was wearing the glazed look of someone who had just taken a punch to the jaw. “Do you need anything?”

“Some of M’gann’s good Scotch.” J’onn’s body seemed to shimmer, his eyes flashing red, and Kara realized he was struggling to retain his human form. He closed his eyes and murmured a phrase in Martian, and it was that, plus several slow steady breaths, that caused his form to solidify. He leaned across the intervening space and placed a gentle hand on Lena’s shoulder. “That was unexpected, Ms. Luthor. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you from it.”

“It’s not your fault.” Lena opened her eyes just enough to see the tissue Kara was holding. She clutched it between her fingers, the paper tearing under the strain, and avoided Kara’s eyes with her gaze. “It wasn’t exactly a surprise, if I’m being honest.”

“Was it something about the house?” Kara asked.

“Yes.” J’onn looked down at Lena’s still-bent head. “I’m afraid I must ask you for some context, Ms. Luthor. But not until you’re ready.”

Lena nodded, and then spent the next minute engaging in very deliberate, mundane tasks. She accepted the water bottle from Kara and took a drink, and then replaced the cap and set the bottle on the table. Next, she wiped at her face with a clean tissue, and then threw all the tissues into the trashcan. Her nose wrinkled at the scent of sickness, and Kara stood and carried the can to the door, setting it just outside. 

“Forgive me for being so much trouble,” Lena said when Kara returned.

“You aren’t any trouble,” Kara said gently.

Lena looked up at her for the first time, her mouth twisted in wry disagreement. “Oh but you haven’t heard what I have to tell you yet,” she said, and then turned her gaze on J’onn. Outwardly, she seemed composed and calm, but Kara could hear the blood pumping through her veins at a disturbing rate. 

“What you saw, Director J’onzz, was a room where my mother liked to hurt people,” Lena said at last.

“Was this part of her work with Cadmus? Or something else?” J’onn asked. There was a soldier’s hardness in the question, but his eyes, Kara saw, were full of empathy.

“Something else.” Lena’s fingers tightened around each other in a white-knuckled grip, yet her breathing remained steady, and her words were calm. “This was well before my mother’s ideas had crystalized into what became Cadmus. Back then she was simply a person with some dark tendencies and a penchant for taking them out on others.”

“Taking them out how?” Kara asked.

Lena just looked at her, pain shining in her eyes. 

“Oh,” Kara said, as she realized what Lena was implying. “Oh, Rao.” 

Lena blinked once, nodding, and then turned back to J’onn. “I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to study the plans that I sent over, but I can describe the house to you in some detail now. Its most prominent feature is an open atrium with two long staircases leading to a third floor balcony. Beyond that balcony is a hallway that eventually leads to the master bedroom that my mother once used as her own. But the room you saw in my mind is smaller and off to the left, just past the stairwell landing. When we lived there, it was always locked, and I was not allowed to go inside for any reason. And sometimes, late at night, I would hear strange noises coming from it.”

The words brought into sharp focus the loneliness of Lena’s childhood: Her real mother dead, her father gone too, leaving only Lillian, Lex, and perhaps a few servants to count on in the world. It was the exact opposite of what Kara had found with Jeremiah, Eliza, and Alex. Where Kara had experienced kindness, Lena had known icy disdain; where Kara had known love, Lena had been subject to suspicion and isolation. And Lena had been younger too, and vulnerable in all the ways a human child could be. 

It was a testament to her strength that she had survived. But the scars of that survival ran deep.

“I was afraid of that room,” Lena continued. Her voice, usually so confident, held a childlike hesitation now, and was tinged with a strain of her native Irish lilt. “But I was a curious girl, and so of course I was fascinated by what was forbidden. And so one night, I stole the master keys from the housekeeper’s cabinet in the kitchen and unlocked the door. I remember that before I put in the key and turned the lock, I heard what sounded like pleading. When I was inside, the sound was louder, and eventually, I could see…” She trailed off and bent her head, sucking in an audible breath.

Kara crouched down in front of Lena and touched first her knee, then her hand. “You should stop,” she whispered.

“I agree,” J’onn said, his voice low. “We’ve inflicted enough pain for one day.” 

But Lena was adamant. “You need the details, and I need to get it out while it’s fresh,” she said, and then, before they could protest, quickly added, “I walked past the closet, and past the bed, and then I reached an alcove near a window. And there I saw a woman, naked and on her knees, with her hands tied above her head. My mother was using a cane to beat bloody welts across this woman’s back.” 

J’onn let out what sounded a lot like a Martian curse, and Kara sensed that he too was seeing not some stranger tied up as Lena described, but Alex, bound and bloody while Lillian did the same thing to her. She let go of Lena’s hand and walked to the far side of the room, staring once again at the mark she’d made in the wall six months ago. She felt an overwhelming need to do that again, only this time with Lillian in her grip.

And maybe this time around, she wouldn’t stop with just making a dent. 

“It was one of the maids,” she heard Lena say. “Mother said she’d been fired for stealing. But she hadn’t been fired. Mother had done that to her and then…I don’t know. Killed her maybe?”

“Perhaps used her as an early subject for experiments,” J’onn said, and Kara felt a chill run through her at the thought.

“It’s quite possible that once Mother was done venting her anger, she put the woman to what she considered to be good use.” Lena reached for the water bottle and took another sip. Her heart rate, Kara was relieved to hear, was slowing, now that the worst of the memories were out. “The only thing I know for certain is that I was shipped off to boarding school the next day, and when I came home the following summer, we were living somewhere else.” 

“You scared Lillian,” Kara said, feeling proud of that lost, brave little girl who had, despite everything, overcome the Luthor legacy.

“Or I shamed her.” Lena turned to look at Kara, something haunted in her features. “I guess it didn’t last.”

J’onn nodded, his body tense with suppressed anger. Kara knew they were thinking the same thing: If Lillian was doing something similar to Alex, then it would be difficult to hold back from meting out the kind of justice such cruelty deserved. Human law might say that Lillian deserved prison, but neither she nor J’onn were human. And both of them had the power to rend her limb from limb.

“Ms. Luthor, is it your feeling that your mother would use the same room again?” J’onn asked, urgency in his voice.

“For all her insanity, mother is a creature of habit. If she likes something, she tends to stick with it.” Lena’s face hardened, her voice taking on a brittle tone. “Mother really liked that room.”

“Then that location will be the focus of our rescue strategy.” J’onn stood up, gesturing for Lena to stay in the chair when she started to rise. “Please, take your time. However, if you feel well enough, it would be helpful if you would go over the plans to the house with us. It may help you recall more details.”

“Of course,” Lena replied. “I want to do anything I can to help rescue Alex. I owe that to Kara Danvers, and to Alex and Maggie for what my mother has done to them.”

“We will all be grateful for the help,” J’onn said. “If you need anything before we get started, I’m sure Supergirl would be happy to see to your needs.” 

He looked over at Kara then, something odd in his gaze, and Kara wondered just what, exactly, he had pulled from Lena’s mind. But then Lena was pushing to her feet, and all Kara could think about was rushing over to hold her steady. Lena gave a slight shake of her head, however, and powered upward on her own. 

“Before we do that…” Lena straightened her suit jacket, smoothing her hand down the material. “I’m guessing that the walls to the mansion are indeed lined with lead.”

“Not just lead, but kryptonite as well,” J’onn confirmed. “In addition, there appears to be some sort of field generator that prevents me from phasing through the walls.”

“Mother is nothing if not thorough.” Lena tilted her head to the side, her fingers tapping against the table in front of her, and Kara saw that quick mind at work. “I may be able to do something about the kryptonite, for a few seconds at least.” 

“You mean a shield?” Kara asked, and Lena nodded. “We actually have one, but Winn determined that the mass of the building is so large that it wouldn’t be effective.”

One corner of Lena’s mouth quirked upward as a spark returned to those green eyes. “Perhaps what I have in mind can enhance it enough that it could be.”

“Could it be ready in two days?” J’onn asked, and Kara could see that he was impressed that Lena’s focus, after all she had just endured, was on solving the problem at hand. 

“With Winn’s help, possibly.” Lena looked over at J’onn. “Director J’onzz, you’ve been inside my mind. You know I had nothing to do with capturing Alex. So let me make a real difference here.”

J’onn considered the offer for a brief moment, before giving a crisp nod. “Supergirl, please escort Ms. Luthor to the lab and have Winn join her immediately.”

“Lena.” She held out her hand, her mouth set in a determined line, and waited for J’onn to accept the handshake. 

“Lena,” J’onn said, with a rumble of quiet approval. “Welcome to the team.” 

He turned and looked at Kara then, and what she saw in his eyes — understanding, as well as compassion — made her shiver. When there was time, she knew, they would have things to say to each other. But not now. 

“The lab is upstairs,” Kara said to Lena, “and I can get you anything you need as well. Something to eat, some more water…”

“Just the shield you created and the best computer you have,” Lena replied, a dark resolve in her eyes. “With any luck, we can stop my mother once and for all.” 

“Yes,” Kara said, and once again her mind was filled with images of a beaten woman, naked and on her knees. “This time we stop her, once and for all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings for: beating and abuse, possible murder, repressed memories and PTSD symptoms.
> 
> For those hoping for some Sanvers time, my apologies. This is by far the most Kara/Lena-centric chapter of the story, but it is necessary to move several chess pieces forward. We'll be back to our regularly scheduled Maggie POV sometime after Ultimates.

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings for: violence, beating, torture, physical restraint, non-con BDSM overtones,threats of gun violence, psychological conditioning, nudity, extreme worries about the imminent collapse of the permafrost.


End file.
